The Variance of Time: Nemesis
by Nuada Silverhand
Summary: From a future where victory over Voldemort was no longer enough, the plan for Harry was simple; go back in time, outsmart a bunch of eleven year olds, and reforge the future to protect those he loves. But when your schoolyard nemesis has also returned with an agenda, saving the world suddenly gets much more complicated...
1. Chapter 1: Beginnings

Disclaimer: All rights to JK Rowling, except possibly where ideas have been pinched directly from other authors (such references will be to amuse / show off only, and will have no bearing on plot).

1\. Beginnings

As soon as Harry collapsed onto the crimson blankets, a warm tingling ran up his limbs and into his chest that banished whatever part of the Scottish September chill had snuck into the tower. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, he felt at home. For a part of him, it was the first time he could remember ever feeling at home. As the welcome sounds of Ron's snores, Neville's grumbling, and Dean and Seamus's whispering filled his ears, Harry had never been so happy to start school.

Ok, so he'd been pretty delighted the first time around, at his chance to learn magic, finally escape incarceration at Privet Drive, and meet people who wouldn't act as if they'd prefer him dead (funny how that last one had turned out); and he had vague recollections of optimism back when he had started primary school before the other students had learned to ignore him from fear of his cousin, but this was different. Seeing everyone who had been scarred through the war so young, so innocent, and in more than a few cases, recently returned to the living, Harry knew that he had a chance to change things.

A chance that he fully intended on taking.

He objectively realised that, as wars went, the Second War could have certainly gone a lot worse. At the gates of Hogwarts herself, Voldemort and his Death Eaters had been utterly ruined, and while some of the actions taken by both sides in the war had seemed dubious in hindsight, on the whole it tended to be the older generation who'd paid the price for it. Dumbledore. Moody. Snape. Remus and Sirius. All great people whom he loved, but considering just what his own generation had got up to, younger casualties had been remarkably light. Every loss was deeply mourned, but to defeat Voldemort? A year, even a month before the Dark Lord's downfall, at the height of his reign of terror, Harry would definitely have taken it.

He had not come back because of the war.

But after the war, came the plague. A few apparent disappearances of isolated cases at the start. As an Auror, Harry had been sent to many cases where previously healthy individuals had died or disappeared suddenly, investigating murder cases with no evidence pointing to the existence of a murderer. Then St Mungo's started noticing common symptoms between their worst patients. Though the numbers of the infected were small, they were growing quickly. The wizarding world needed a cure, fast.

Then Ginny got sick.

A hammer blow had fallen on Harry's heart as he watched his wife whittle away while he looked on. In a soulless St Mungo's ward, thinning limbs lay bare on the sheets, harrowed eyes resting loosely in their sockets, as her body, mind and magic became powerless. All his hard won peace withered and died in front of him with his wife. And while his personal tragedy developed, the same story became writ large across the community as wizard after witch after wizard fell to the dread ailment, while the medi-witches and -wizards of the hospital gazed powerlessly at them, helpless.

Any of them could be next. A full ten years after the end of the war, a great fear went up amongst the magical population that would have rivalled that caused during the peak of the era of Voldemort. After months of desperate searching amid the collapse of wizarding Britain, through panic and disaster, a cure was found. A cure, but no salvation, and it was then that all hope was truly lost.

For the tomes of old had encountered this curse before, and the cure stated was a lengthy but reasonably straightforward potion to be administered to the patient seven times a day for seven days. Unfortunately, the potion hinged on an active ingredient of the saliva from a rare magical specie of ring-tailed jay. The last known colony of these jays was considered an item of national and strategic importance and taken to the safety of the Department of Mysteries for further study in 1994.

When the Ministry was retaken from Voldemort four years later, there was no sign of them, nor had they been declared missing, for those few who had known of their existence beforehand were either dead or lost in the chaos of a newly won peace. Unnoticed amongst the carnage and the madness that reigned in the absence of their greatest foe, it transpired that the Dark Lord's most damning act was the one nobody even realised had happened.

As frustration boiled over at the lack of a physical enemy to enact vengeance on, and Hermione's gaze met his rage-filled eyes by Ginny's grave, Harry knew only one thing for certain.

They were going to get that bloody bird back.

* * *

The first thing Draco felt was clean.

The pale smoothness of his left arm, unsullied by that mark which in his previous body had never truly disappeared.

The sudden absence of the racking tension in his bones, which had never felt the shaking and wrenching of the cruciatus, the curse from which you never fully healed.

And the simple workings of his mind, with a lifetime of suffering and war unseen, free from the heavy weights of both the tortures that he had not yet endured and those that he had not yet committed.

Clean.

He knew, at once, that he had made the right decision. Not just because it had worked, one small mishap aside, but because even if it hadn't, the mere chance of feeling as pure as he did now was worth any injury or any risk of being cast into non-existence. It was in those first moments, lying sprawled across a foreign yet achingly familiar Hogwarts bed, that Draco vowed to himself that this time would turn out differently. Better. Because there was no greater motivation you could have, than knowing that you had this much to lose.

It was an irony, he thought, that he had made the right choice for the wrong reasons. Eight long years after the war's end, despite the best stewardship of himself and his wife Astoria, his one ray of light in the misery of the times, the Malfoy fortunes in both luck and wealth had ebbed and waned, seemingly eternally cursed by the shadow cast upon the losers of the war against the Dark Lord. Damned into eternal infamy and shorn of the family gold through fines, new taxes, and businesses' sudden aversion to Malfoy investment, he had squandered the last of his inheritance on one final throw of the dice; to return to a time before a war it would have been easier not to lose in the first place.

Except the coins had not been squandered, for against all odds, he had succeeded. To be stretched out on dark green blankets in a low, wide dormitory with four other recently sorted Slytherins, he had manipulated the runes on the archway in the Department of Mysteries into sending him not into death, but backwards in time itself, his mind, memories and magic returning to his old, younger, self. The work had been long, difficult, and secretive, but it had worked. The clock had been wound back.

Except this time around, he was far more powerful, more knowledgeable, better able to spin the world around him. Draco had plans for this new life, and he intended to get as many of them started as soon as he could. It was refreshing, for once, to be able to approach a project with an optimism and excitement that he wasn't quite sure he'd have approved of in someone else. Top of his list of future ills to be avoided at all costs was to keep his recently healed soul undamned and untorn, but there was still plenty of traditionally questionable magic he could perform that would give him an edge without descending that far into wretchedness. With the right intention, and steering clear of two thirds of the unforgiveables, he was confident of being able to retain the nobility and purity a line such as his demanded.

The only upset he'd found so far was that he was a day late. To pick the right side in the war (or at least to avoid the wrong one and leave his reputation intact), he'd reconciled himself to being, if not friendly to, at least civil with the future war hero and all round golden boy Potter, which meant changing many of his relationships from day one of his return. Unfortunately, returning as he did the night of the welcoming feast, he had vague, eleven-year old memories of a row on the train which had gone every bit as badly as last time. Making up with Potter would have to wait a while, then.

And to think he'd been so sure that himself and Astoria had done everything correctly. One of the calculations must have come out wrong, Draco mused, a simple rounding error perhaps, or else, more ominously, there could be another factor at play.

But that was surely just a minor inconvenience, for a day was nothing when he had a lifetime ahead of him to enjoy, and now he had a unique chance to put things right; a chance to rebuild his future to reign after the war's end. After all, Draco thought, the only change from his previous life was his memories and personality, and he would like to think himself not so incompetent that he had been a deciding factor in Voldemort's defeat. It was unthinkable that him not taking the Dark Lord's side would lead to Voldemort winning the coming conflict. All he had to do was stay out of the way of a most uncivil war, outsmart and coerce a bunch of preteens into looking to him as a role model and leader, and get out of Hogwarts as future master puppeteer of the wizarding world. Things should be easy, right?

* * *

As the days following Ginny's funeral ground on, the conversation about retrieving the jay from the shadows of the past had become less theoretical and the many calculations involved had started to get somewhat solvable (at least to Hermione; Ron and Harry had no idea what they meant). Sitting in silence at the table in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, staring at Sirius, still blasted from the tapestry, and thinking of Remus and Tonks, his friend and cousin, and the other dead; brothers, friends and teachers, the three friends had decided on aiming for more. They had to go backwards in time anyway to fetch the magical jay that would save the world as they knew it from the dread of plague; they could then, should then, also right the other wrongs of the past. If they were going to mess with time, they might as well save as many people as they could.

The discussion turned to the practicalities of the "trip", as they'd started referring to it; the key was the Veil of Death. What could transport souls from one realm to another could also be made to carry them across time, and in the face of utter annihilation the Ministry had provided the war heroes with the access and Unspeakables required to unlock its secrets, while not entirely aware of just what they were planning to do with the information.

Reluctantly, they had decided that to simplify the necessary Arithmancy involved to the point where they could realise their ambitions, they could only send one person back to the past. As a skilled Auror, ex-Boy-Who-Lived and general miracle worker, Harry was the one who got to relive the wizarding war. They had also agreed that the summer before Fourth Year was the most sensible time to return to. After all, the first three years had gone very well indeed, without serious injury (mostly) and involving several very generous slices of good fortune they couldn't be assured to have again a second time around. On the other hand, any later and they'd have Voldemort to deal with, as well as considering that they had to get to the damned jay before any trail they managed to pick up could go cold.

Which lead to Harry's first problem; with him now being eleven, they'd obviously missed that time slot. By quite some margin. They'd spent a long time going over the starting conditions for Fourth Year: preparations for the Triwizard Tournament, the best way to deal with Moody / Crouch, and to stop the return of Voldemort. While the three friends had spent some time refreshing the memories of the first three years so that they could talk about them as if they'd happened fairly recently rather than the best part of a lifetime ago, they hadn't gone into anywhere near the same depth, the depth they needed to have gone into, to pull everything off without a hitch.

Harry scrunched up his face and thought about what they'd gone over, as if all the problems of the year could be solved by his eleven year old self lying alone on a Hogwarts bed immediately. He remembered something about a troll. He wasn't looking forward to Halloween. Then again... he wasn't looking forward to a lot of Halloweens.

Other aspects of the plan now needed tweaking as well. Originally, he had intended to reveal his new self and his mission to his friends as soon as he could. However, there was a big difference between letting people in on the secret who you'd known, trusted and fought alongside for three years (including one very recent venture where time travel had been directly involved, which would help with the incredulity of such a feat) that you'd come from the future, and getting to know someone with the opening line "Hi, I'm a time traveller!". This would now require more subtlety, not least because if he messed things up and had to start again he'd have to sort out the theory himself and not rely on Hermione. At least for a few more years. On the other hand...

On the other hand Harry could finally let himself relax into a long-overdue childhood. He'd "arrived" in the past the day after his trip to Diagon Alley, and after a brief but decisive confrontation with his relatives ("Look, Aunt Petunia, Hagrid showed me how to do spells!") he'd secured a definitive detente with them ("Get your things to your room, boy, and don't let any of that nonsense out of it or it'll be locked in the cupboard forever!"). This meant he'd spent the last month in peaceful isolation, doing some rather belated planning on how he wanted his year to go and reacquainting himself with how to be an eleven year old (spending a perhaps unhealthy amount of time in front of a mirror practicing his "adorably innocent" look that he found as embarrassing as it would be effective). This has then been followed by a train ride with a refreshingly honest Ron, bossy Hermione and arrogant Draco and a rather philosophical conversation with the sorting hat that was thankfully only able to summarise his predicament with a weary rendition of "Gryffindor...". Now, he could finally rest in the fondly remembered bed he'd longed so much for ever since Ginny's funeral and the launch of this mad plot.

He could also ensure that he and his friends were far more prepared for the trials that were to come. And instead of worrying about how a sudden change into a more serious, experienced Harry Potter would be perceived by those around him, he had the benefit of being surrounded by people who had never known him at all. The majority of them would, after all, despite their natural nosiness and debilitating desire to get to know the Boy-Who-Lived (on his duvets, Harry gave a silent shudder), still be eleven, and therefore not be all that difficult to outsmart.

Right?


	2. Chapter 2: Kitchen Raids

Disclaimer: Who has the rights to passages where Hogwarts characters reenact BBC comedy gold? I honestly don't know, but it's not me. Also, updates will be around every two weeks; this is going up sooner to get the ball rolling.

2\. The Kitchen Raids

The new cohort of first years had barely passed their first week in, and Draco was already struggling. Not with any lessons, obviously, nor with the teachers, to whom he was unfailingly polite and respectful. No, his problem was with his fellow students. Relaxing on Friday evening in the Slytherin common room after their first introduction to the boredom of History of Magic, he began to wonder why he hadn't considered rethinking his choice of friends earlier in his previous run through.

"Bloody History of Magic. Binns would surely be the most boring teacher alive, if it wasn't for the fact he was already dead."

Crabbe and Goyle grunted their agreement beside him. After a few moments of silence, it occurred to Draco that that was all he was going to get out of them. He sighed and decided to try playing the helpful role model that he was hoping to bloom into this time around. After all, if he wanted to be respected after the Dark Lord's downfall, he should probably start cultivating his leadership abilities as soon as possible.

"Well, what do you two think about him?" He prompted.

He was met with another pair of near identical grunts and moaned quietly to himself. This was going to be more work than he had thought it was going to be, and he hadn't been particularly optimistic about it at the start. He tried again.

"Tell me what do you think about him. Speak up, for Merlin's sake! Opinions are so important, you need to start coming up with a few."

A brief pause. Then a movement from Goyle, and a fleeting moment of optimism before -

"I think if Binns wasn't dead, he'd be the most boring teacher alive." Goyle said.

This time Draco's groan was audible and he raked his hands through his hair in frustration. Making sure that he was speaking slowly, he tried to coax conversation out of what might as well have been slabs of meat and lard.

"No, that's what I just said. Now I want you to tell me what you think about it."

He looked at Crabbe hopefully.

"I think that opinions are important and that I should start coming up with a few."

"Argh!" Draco let out, drawing a few odd looks from the other Slytherins in the common room. Sure, he had grown rather fond of having mindless muscle to unfailingly back him up in the past, but it didn't half put a drain on the available intelligent conversation. "Fine. We'll just have to revisit this later."

After being met by two more soul-scarring twin grunts, Draco thought about the other members of his year. Honestly, they weren't too much better. He was rapidly discovering the main downside to being eleven years old again: he had to talk to first years. And while he was very much enjoying the feeling of being far ahead in all his classes (not that they'd done much actual work yet that he could prove himself on) and not being expected to look after himself particularly well (the idea of rolling out of bed and being ready for breakfast five minutes later was particularly refreshing), his "peers" were unbelievingly boring.

Most of the younger students (the ones who'd consent to talk to a first year, no matter how rich his dad was) were either idiot simpletons who acted how they wanted, when they wanted, with complete disregard for anyone else, or were trying to play the pureblood heir role and discuss politics and family. Normally, the latter would have been sufferable, even interesting, however, being between eleven and thirteen they inevitably approached the task with an appalling lack of subtlety that would disgrace a rampaging hippogriff. In his own year, Crabbe and Goyle were well on their way to resuming their previous roles as dumb henchman numbers one and two, despite his best efforts. Blaise and Theo were decent enough on certain matters, and Draco had definitely enjoyed many intelligent conversations and debates with their older selves, but at the moment both boys were too insular for him to impress and inspire properly.

From the girls' dormitory, Millicent was similarly keeping to herself, he would count himself blessed if Pansy could do the same, and Tracey seemed content to spend most of her time with Daphne. Daphne herself, meanwhile, was another problem.

There was nothing wrong with the way she spoke to him or acted around him. Nothing that was her fault, anyway. But unfortunately for Draco, the Greengrass sisters were incredibly similar, painfully similar, and every time he saw her a pang went up in his chest for the wife he'd left behind. Her looks, voice, and even smell whenever he sat beside her at a mealtime sent shivers down his spine as memories of his past life spent with her sister shook him.

With Astoria, he'd never been bored, or shied away from practicing dubious advanced magic, or had lain down on his bed exasperated and alone. After the last war, isolated as he'd been, his wife had always been by his side. Shunned by the victors intent on starting a new order in politics, ignored by businesswizards who wouldn't sully their products with the Malfoy name, hounded by the press, the one part of his life that remained good was the newest Mrs. Malfoy. They had suffered much worse than his current boredom, but they'd always suffered it together. That was one reunion he was definitely looking forward to.

But of all the students, his greatest annoyance was the one who was at once both staying truest to form and yet being infuriatingly different, Harry Bloody Potter.

On the Monday after their first night at Hogwarts, when the oncoming house feuds would be at their earliest and both sets of first years would be most accepting of anyone crossing that infamous green-red divide, he'd tried to make up for his accidental (fine, at the time he'd meant exactly what he'd said, but that was the Draco of fifteen years ago from his point of view, not that of yesterday) faux-pas on the train with a convoluted but nevertheless sincere sort-of apology.

Potter had not only snubbed him again, but made a point of repeatedly doing so when he tried again twice more that week. Quite how the bloody Boy-Who-Lived had been set so against him off one bad experience, Draco couldn't quite fathom; it wasn't as if this version had lived through the seven years of at-times-deadly rivalry that had defined their previous relationship at Hogwarts. And after his "performance" in Potions... Maybe Draco had been more reasonable when he was younger than he had thought, and Potter was actually just as prejudiced and antagonistic as he had believed the boy to be during his previous youth.

But that didn't explain just how Potter had suddenly managed to equal Granger in their first week of classes. Surely he couldn't have been so blinded by hatred in his past experiences to completely overlook that the raven haired dolt was actually one of the best students in their year? Maybe he'd started quickly, and then dropped off just as suddenly so that his previous performance barely registered more than a blip in Draco's mind. That would explain it; after all, you would expect a child raised by muggles to have taken such an interest in his books that he flew through the first two weeks of class, before his mind was unable to keep up with that rate and he returned to struggle behind the rest of them. Or else he had been so shocked by the mudblood Granger that he hadn't paid any attention to how everyone else was getting on.

Damn it, he'd have to watch his mouth. In the future, shortly after the turn of the millennium, a group of muggleborn first years had been called "mudbloods" by a particularly thick bigot unable to read the political climate of the time. Rather than get insulted however, or stand around in bafflement until someone more educated in wizarding culture informed them that they should be insulted, they had simply laughed it off and started using it as a term of endearment amongst themselves. Any older muggleborns or half-bloods who questioned this were let in on the joke, and soon the whole school had picked it up. These two weeks had done more to deter the supremacists from use of the word than decades of pro-muggle campaigning, and within the year, while frowned upon to use if you weren't muggleborn yourself, it had lost almost all of its previous stigma.

Here in the past however, it was still considered unacceptable, and while he didn't particularly care for the feelings of those he was calling it, usage would create an image of himself that would be ruinous in the environment that bloody Potter and his friends would soon be creating once they'd dealt with the Dark Lord.

So Potter was irritating and his dorm mates were boring and he needed to project himself as a leader for the events to come and the hopefully golden (galleon-golden) future that would follow it, and was at a loss as to how to solve any of those things from his current position except by sitting on his arse in the common room and waiting as patiently as a Malfoy could bear to be.

The main issue, Draco realised, was that there simply wasn't much to do around Hogwarts. He was never going to be kept busy by homework, as so many of the others were, they couldn't bring their own brooms to the school until second year, they couldn't visit Hogsmeade until third year, and they couldn't start duelling each other in abandoned classrooms until they knew enough magic to do more than hurl coloured sparks at each other. Doubtless, if he was some dumb brute of a Gryffindor, he would have thought leading a merry band on a raid of the school kitchens to be a fine idea, but for all their faults his housemates had slightly more sophistication than that.

Oh well, he thought, sitting back in the couch by the fire. He'd figure out something that could both kill time and confirm his position as the leader of the house. After all, he had nothing better to do.

* * *

As he snuck out the portrait door of the common room in front of the others, Harry gave himself a silent but giddy congratulations. Leading a raid on the school kitchens was a fine idea. More than that, it was an excellent idea. Now all he had to do was pull it off.

After thinking about it all week, he'd decided that if he waited patiently for his housemates to grow up enough to regain their later strengths and values, he was going to get bored out his skull before you could say Quidditch, and certainly long before they came to second year and they could get their own brooms to actually play Quidditch on. No, he needed some fun, inclusive activities that would break the ice and lead to a happier, more confident, and united pair of dorm rooms than in his previous existence. Hence, kitchen raids. It was fun, harmless, and would help everyone else acclimatise to the copious amounts of rule breaking that he intended on getting up to over the next seven years. Or at least that was the theory anyway.

During his planning, he'd decided that rather than try to hide all the advanced (by the standards of someone who'd been at Hogwarts for a week) magic he'd have to pull off to enable his motley band of madly giggling eleven year olds to get away with this, it would be simplest to just not bother. With so many of them going, no individual could be punished particularly harshly, and with their cutest preteen grins and it being the end of the first week (Harry even decided to go on the Friday so they wouldn't get told they had to be up for lessons the next day), they'd probably only get a detention at worst. Hey, depending on who found them they might even get off with a warning. Ultimately, as long as they actually made it to the kitchen, he was confident most people would count the trip as a success.

It was unsurprisingly easy to convince the entire year of Gryffindors to come along with him; after all, they could at this stage either be easily peer-pressured into coming along (Neville) or thought it was as brilliant an idea as Harry did and were wondering why they didn't think of it first (everyone else, not realising it was because they didn't know where the kitchens were or how to get into them).

Everyone, that is, except one endearing and familiar bushy-haired witch.

"But we'll be breaking the rules!" Hermione protested in a very loud whisper when he broke the plan to her on the Thursday evening before the outing.

Ignoring the interested looks from the rest of a not-quite-packed common room, who all knew something was up with their newest housemates but were rather content to watch it play out in front of them and either congratulate or commiserate with the younger ones depending on how it went, Harry argued back.

"But we won't be hurting anyone, Hermione, and we're not breaking very many."

"But they're still rules! We could be expelled!" Hermione gasped.

Managing to refrain from rolling his eyes at the idea of an entire year of Gryffindors being expelled for wandering around the castle half an hour after curfew in their first week, Harry brought out his big guns.

"They don't expel people unless you really hurt someone. That's what Hagrid told me when he fetched me from the Dursleys." Harry was very thankful that Hermione hadn't heard yet that Hagrid himself had been expelled. "You don't have to come if you don't want to, though. I just thought it might be a nice way for us all to become friends."

Harry knew any Hermione, his old or his new, was far too stubborn to be argued over. So he refused to push and waited for the f-word to work its magic on a girl who, as much as him, was looking for a fresh start.

Sure enough, the next day, he had all eight Gryffindor first years to lead out of the portrait.

They assembled just inside the Fat Lady twenty minutes before the beginning of curfew, so that they could make it to their target before patrols started. Harry reckoned they were extremely unlikely to get found while inside the kitchens, so they could successfully carry out their "mission" without fear of someone catching and returning them before they snuck themselves any food. From there, it was a simple matter of sneaking back into the common room, if they were lucky, or getting escorted back, if not.

Their first problem was Percy Weasley.

"And where do you think you're going?" He demanded, with a glare that seemed particularly aimed at Ron.

Standing at the front of a group that seemed split between quivering and giggling, Harry spoke up before anyone could back out.

"We're just going for a quick look around the corridor. It's really not very far, and we do fancy a small walk around before we have to be back here. Curfew isn't for another twenty minutes."

Ignoring a shocked gasp from behind him (apparently Hermione wasn't used to the idea of someone lying to a prefect) Harry honestly thought he was laying on the cute-orphan-whine he'd been practicing since he returned a bit thick, and it seemed Percy was inclined to agree with him.

"Do you really have to go tonight? You'll have plenty of time tomorrow to explore the castle and its very important not to be out later than you should be, in fact -"

"Oi! Perce!"

Harry had a second to be glad to hear George Weasley's voice before realising with a jolt that he didn't actually know which twin had interrupted them. A wide grin split his face as he prepared for the twins' double act for the fist time in a decade. Merlin, it was good to be back.

"Are you now hassling firsties -"

"Who aren't even breaking any rules?"

"Quite un-prefect-like."

"You should really know better."

"And besides -"

"There's ink spilling all over your transfiguration essay!"

By the time Percy had rushed back over to the desk he was working at and realised that, in fact, there wasn't any ink spilling over his transfiguration essay, his quarry had already snuck out. It was go time.

Harry felt a tingle race up his spine as they piled through the hole in the wall and down the corridor, which was ridiculous. As a first year last time he'd faced a Cerberus, knocked out a troll, nearly been thrown off his broom, met plants which tried to kill him, and stared down Lord Voldemort himself. This was a trip to the kitchens. It occurred to him that in all his adventures during his last stay at Hogwarts he'd never done something like this for the simple thrill of it. It had always been saving someone's life, defeating a Dark Lord, or training his friends for a battle to the death... Except maybe that time he'd been set up for a mock duel by Malfoy, and even that had started him on the trail to stopping Quirrell. He wondered how much eleven year old remained from the body he'd taken over the day after his eleventh birthday, or whether it was a part of him left over from his twenty seven year old mind which had never had a chance to come out. Either way, this was fun.

As expected, despite tearing around staircases and making a lot of shushing and laughing sounds between them, they made it safe to the kitchens just before nine o'clock and the patrols of teachers or prefects that accompanied it. Approaching the large painting that was the entrance, Harry grinned as the looks of bemusement turned to awe on his companions' faces when he tickled the pear in the fruit basket and the way opened up ahead of them.

Harry had never thought of himself as a particularly religious man, but if anywhere in his life represented enough of what was good in this world to be considered a shrine, then it was surely the Hogwarts kitchens. In front of Gryffindor Tower's newest residents a scene of wonderful chaos played out, with hordes of house elves scurrying here and there with ludicrous towers of bowls, plates and saucepans hurrying after them. Over by the sinks, which dwarfed the elves that worked them, great stacks of dishes swayed precariously as soapy washcloths spun themselves through the air to rub and clean. The whole hall shook with busy energy, and Harry's delight on his return was no less than that of those visiting for the first time.

"Wicked!" Exclaimed Seamus.

Harry turned to look at Ron and snorted at the look of awed devotion on his friend's face as he looked at the food.

"Enjoying yourself, Ron?"

His response was a nodding head and moan of agreement.

"Well let's get started then!" Harry replied.

Barely five minutes later the eight of them were sat round a rickety but comfortable wooden table, with mountains of desserts and puddings gathered in towering columns before them. A hush fell over them as they in turn fell on the food with a vengeance. Sometimes, Harry reflected before helping himself to more treacle tart, you could bond more over silence than words.

Dean, Seamus and Ron were each tucking into gargantuan portions, revelling in their newfound freedom to eat as much as they wanted without suffering the disapproving looks of other students and teachers as they would in the Great Hall. Maybe, Harry reflected, food just tasted better when you knew you weren't supposed to be having it.

Neville and Hermione were a bit more refined, picking cautiously at their cakes as if the patisseries themselves would suddenly yell at them for breaking the rules or sprout legs and run away. Eventually though, after much encouragement from the house elves around them, they got into the atmosphere of the event and were soon tucking in greedily, as were Parvati and Lavender beside them.

Harry thanked his lucky stars that Hermione as of yet didn't know what a house elf was or what their work involved. Hopefully, with a first encounter during such a happy circumstance, and some conversations with some actual, typical (for none of them could ever be considered "normal") house elves, they would be able to avoid a premature repeat of SPEW this time around. A hunger strike in the name is creature rights would be a rather unfortunate hitch in Harry's plan to break the first years into the kitchens and stuff them silly.

"Even mum doesn't make this much food at home." mentioned Ron while enthusiastically accepting another serving from an equally delighted elf. "And there she was worrying I'd get too thin before Christmas!"

"I think that's what mothers do, mate. Mine sent me off with a horde of Honeydukes's finest. Not that I'm complaining, I'm halfway through it already. Can't wait till we get to visit it for ourselves." Seamus replied.

"We don't really have sweets at our house." Hermione spoke up. "Both my parents are dentists, and they don't like me having many of them."

"What!"

"Don't have sweets?!"

"What's a dentist?"

"Maybe we should go over this another time." Harry intervened. "When we're not eating."

Harry and Dean smirked in agreement at the idea of teaching kids taught in the wizarding world about muggle dental hygiene over midnight snacks. It was probably best to ensure everything was well digested before crossing that particular milestone. Hermione simply looked shocked at people knowing so little about each other's lives, or maybe her eyes were still popped at the idea of unlimited sugar.

When the eight of them had eaten their fill (and then some more), and scrammed extra food into every pocket, bag, and cavity they could find (Harry didn't think they had quite gotten it into their heads yet that they could have more at any mealtime, all they had to do was ask) they waved goodbye to their house elf hosts and began their return to the common room with heavy loads and even heavier stomachs.

Harry was prepared and expecting to be caught, but as they continued along the winding corridors and shuffling staircases on the way back, they found the corridors strangely deserted. In fact, they encountered neither teacher, prefect, nor fellow troublemaker until they were safely tucked away back in their common room, at which the latter of those three options, waiting for them in the scarlet room just inside the portrait, reintroduced themselves to the raiders.

"Well, well, well." began George (or was it Fred?).

"Look what we have here." the other twin completed.

"Little firsties, visiting the kitchens."

"And in their first week, too!"

"How did you find out about that?" Ron jutted in.

"Ron." The twin to the left gave his younger brother a condescending look that matched his tone (dealing first with the brothers separated by an ear, and then losing one in the Battle of Hogwarts, had really played havoc with Harry's ability to tell them apart).

"We know everything."

"Our ears extend through the entire school. Of course we can keep track of the newbies while they share their first adventures."

Harry grinned. The twins didn't know how true their claim would turn out to be, with the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes' Extendable Ears spreading throughout Hogwarts within a year of Voldemort's downfall.

One of the twins noticed his smile. "And by the way, Harry."

"You can thank us for keeping you out of trouble."

"Professor Sprout had a sudden ruckus on the fourth floor that needed urgent attention, so couldn't complete her rounds by Gryffindor tower."

"Poor Professor Sprout." The other twin piped up with a commiserating look.

"How did you know Harry was leading us?" Dean asked.

"We know everything, silly little ones."

"And don't you forget it!"

With that, the Weasley twins whisked their way up to the third year dormitory without awaiting their thanks, nor answering any further questions regarding their apparent omniscience. Harry was glad they intervened, though. Everything going undetected meant any future plans would run that much smoother.

With further conversation postponed, the group split to their respective staircases. As Harry climbed the stairs in the way to a well-earned sleep the boys began asking amongst themselves.

"How did they know Harry was leading us?"

"Because he was first through the portrait, obviously."

Well, it made more sense than a magical map.

"House elves are wicked!"

"Hogwarts desserts are amazing!"

"When are we going again?"

"Soon." Harry promised them. "Soon."

* * *

Draco rose in midmorning that first Hogwarts Saturday and headed down to a leisurely breakfast. He cocked an ear back as he heard the portraits gossiping on his way past.

"Did you see Harry Potter last night?"

"Yes, him and his dorm mates. They looked so cute, the little ones."

He gave a mental choke. Cute. As if.

"Magdalena said she saw them on the way down to the kitchens last night. Adventuring around the castle already, the rascals!" Far from sounding scandalised, the voice was giddy with glee.

Draco let his face fall into his hand. Bloody Gryffindors.


	3. Chapter 3: Lessons Learned

3\. Lessons Learned

It quickly became apparent to Draco that the second week of lessons was going to be even duller than the first. The magic (for want of a better word) of returning to Hogwarts was already wearing thin, and his early ideals of going further, faster, than everybody else were being shattered by the realisation that repeating things you'd learned fifteen years ago was boring. Worse than boring, it was excessively tedious. Barely twenty minutes into Defence Against the Dark Arts, their very first lesson of the grim Monday morning which was already straining his patience (and shared with Gryffindors, no less), that tedium became too much.

So, after Granger raised her hand with such a force that she almost bounced off her chair to answer yet another trivial question about the Lumos charm (light your wand, dark creatures that prefer the shadows stay away from you - not a particularly complicated concept to grasp), Draco decided to spice things up a bit with one of his old favourite pieces of Ministry-termed Dark Magic.

"Sir," he asked innocently when Professor Quirrell had noticed that his hand was up. "What can you tell us about magical possession?"

He was rewarded by a few looks of interest from around the classroom, including one especially startled Potter, who even raised his head from where his hands had been clasped around his forehead on the desk in what Draco could only assume was a sign that he and the rest of the class was almost as bored as the blond himself was. While they had all been looking forward to this subject, the grim realities of being lectured by the stuttering Pro-Pro-Professor Quirrell had quickly relieved them of that hope.

A grin flashed across his face; if Potter took an interest to this, maybe his policy of appeasement towards the wizarding world's favourite brat would actually start bearing fruit. Gifting the rest of the class a reprieve, however brief, from the garlic-scented professor's monologue wouldn't do his reputation any harm either.

"Po-po-possession? What could a child such as you po-possibly want to do with such gh-ghastly magic?"

Somehow restraining himself from rolling his eyes at Quirrell's shock and irritation that any of them would ever take an extended interest in his subject, Draco pressed onwards.

"Yes, sir. My father always talked about it as one of the most intricate pieces of the Dark Arts. He claimed it's a hard feat to achieve, and only especially powerful wizards could do it. I thought you could teach us more about it."

"I see. And do you fancy yourself an 'especially powerful wizard', Mr Malfoy?"

"I wouldn't have come to Hogwarts if I didn't." The not-really-eleven year old retorted.

A gasp of "Ooh"s echoing round the class let Draco know that he was definitely making an impression, and not just on his so-called peers. Apparently his confidence had had an impact on the professor too, as Quirrell eyed him warily from the front, seemingly accepted his reply and rolled into an impromptu lecture on enthralling others.

"Possession is one of the most complicated components of the Dark Arts that is studied here at Hogwarts, or indeed anywhere else in the world." The turbaned teacher began. "As such, there is not much I can tell you about the theory of the spell that will not go straight over your heads. Nor is it a good idea in any case to teach first years such dubious tricks." He threw a look to the class as if one of them was about to start their own campaign of destruction right there and then, and seemed surprised to find that they were staring back at him, enraptured by the discussion of something actually threatening for once.

"What I can tell you is its effects in the most general terms. It is not a curse, or a hex, or a charm. You do not wave your wand, spout some words, and watch the result take hold. Possession is an act of dominating someone else's mind, body, and soul with yours. It requires complete mastery of the chosen victim, and hence only the most talented and mighty of spellcasters can achieve acceptable results. Few in all of history have managed to master possession; many of those rare enough to have the raw power required find that their morals stop them putting it to any use.

"Should, however, a wizard - or witch - be successful in their attempt, they gain full control of their target. Indeed, their own physical body will cease to exist for the duration of the possession. A useful detail, given the vulnerabilities that can befall an empty body while the mind is elsewhere. Instead, they are free to act through their quarry's body, using and abusing them as if they were a puppet to obey their every whim. Quite the accomplishment, and quite the reward accompanying it.

"For the recipient of such misfortune, consequences range from extreme pain caused by the unsuccessful attempt to keep his opponent from their mind, to their ultimate destruction, should the two souls prove suitably... incompatible. The possessed can show signs of sudden character change, dubious behaviour, and worsening physical condition."

"But what if someone was to willingly give themselves over to the possession?" Draco asked.

Quirrell looked vaguely amused.

"Most doors are easier to open, Mr Malfoy, if the lock had been left undone for you. I suppose the more willing or simpler the victim, the easier the possession becomes. Animals, for instance, make good if not useful subjects for experimentation. However, possession is so invasive that even should another witch or wizard let you into their body, they will inevitably fight back as soon as the extent of the perturbation becomes clear. The power over the other provided by possession is absolute; there is no bond or oath that can convince a subjected wizard to surrender so unconditionally to another.

"Is that enough to satisfy you, Mr Malfoy?"

Draco replied in the affirmative and returned to his daydreaming by the castle window with most of the other students as Quirrell resumed his earlier lecture.

"No-no-now, the Lumos charm..."

Concrete details of Quirrell's sudden, but given his position in the castle occupying the doomed Defence Against the Dark Arts post, not entirely unexpected departure at the end of the time-traveller's previous first year were somewhat hard to come by; while there were rumours abound, the presence of both Harry Potter and the Dark Lord himself in these stories meant that most observers had a hard time telling the difference between what was an extraordinary truth and what was celebrity embellishment. It was only the copious points given to Gryffindor at the end of the year and the whispers amongst the Death Eaters, much later, that Snape had stopped the Dark Lord from retrieving the Philosopher's Stone of all things that encouraged Draco to give any credence to any of them. Nevertheless, they were too many to simply ignore, so he had to acknowledge that unlikely as it seemed the stuttering simpleton could well be linked to his former (but most definitely not future) master in some way after all. He must have been impressed then, to give Draco's question such a thorough reply. Maybe this Monday wouldn't prove such a waste after all.

It was only much later, in the comfort of the common room that evening, that Draco would realise the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor had not stuttered once throughout his entire explanation.

* * *

What was Draco doing?

The Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson had jolted Harry back into focus after a weekend spent recovering from the first years' late night venture to the kitchens and one of Hogwarts's greatest ever sugar highs. It was somehow surprising that after a month and a half of innocent preteen bliss that he had, if not forgotten that Voldemort himself was present in some form in the castle, at least put it to the back of his mind. That was dangerous; the ever-present thrum through his long-dormant scar should have been reminder enough that his most deadly enemy was once again at large; Malfoy bringing up possession during the lesson should not have been required to refresh his memory.

In a warm and sleepy Transfiguration classroom, Harry gently tuned out Professor McGonagall and thought about what he had to do next.

Most importantly, he had to be careful. He had already been caused enough problems in the previous timeline by people who thought his parents' murderer was gone for good. People who should have known better. Voldemort was here, and Voldemort was dangerous, and if Harry got cocky, the noseless terrorist would just become even more so.

Harry had always wondered just how much Draco, or for that matter even Lucius, knew what was going on when the Malfoys unleashed the spectre of Tom Riddle from the diary-turned-Horcrux Malfoy Senior gave to Ginny in his second year. Despite going as far as infiltrating the Slytherin common room to try and encourage his schoolyard antagonist to confess his part in the matter, Harry never fully trusted his claims of having no idea of his father's gambit. But while he was never sure what truths of Voldemort's moves were rumoured about amongst the ranks of the Death Eaters, he'd never suspected that Draco knew anything of his attempt to steal the Philosopher's Stone.

Which was saying something, given how suspicious Harry had been of the aristocratic irritant. A habit he was falling back into.

If he was honest about himself, Harry could admit that whenever something had gone against him during his Hogwarts years he had tended to blame Draco. Whether it was the attacks in second year (in which the Slytherin was what would later be described as unusually innocent), wondering how much the boy knew about his godfather in third (definitely more than Harry himself, at any rate), his ostracisation in fourth and fifth years (in which his green-clad opposite number was the ringleader if not the only guilty party) or a threat to the school in sixth year (at fault again, despite his manipulation by both the Lord he served and his own Head of House). Looking at the list, more often than not, he had been right, if not always in the way that he had first thought.

Despite this, he'd never questioned whether Draco knew anything about the events of his first year.

On the face of it, the suggestion seemed ridiculous. Harry himself had witnessed in that cursed (both through foul magic and foul language) graveyard the shock amongst the Death Eaters at their master's revival, Lucius included. Surely had any of them any clue that Voldemort was active, if not powerful, three years earlier they would have either tried to revive him themselves or make plans for the event of his return. If the father didn't know about the attempt on the stone, how could the son?

Maybe Harry's Malfoy paranoia radar was going into overdrive. But through the war of his former youth and his career in the Auror department afterwards, he'd learned to rely on his instinct, and that instinct was screaming at him during that lesson with Quirrell that Draco knew more than he was letting on. It was feasible that he had missed any clues the first time around; their rivalry was only starting and he and his friends were preoccupied with solving the mystery of the third floor corridor themselves. He hadn't the time or inclination to keep an eye on the blond as he had later on in his time at Hogwarts.

And though the idea seemed implausible, the question he had asked back in Defense couldn't have been a coincidence, could it? Back in the future (and wasn't that a weird expression) there had been rumours that the younger Malfoy had experimented with possession, though concrete evidence had never come up. Harry had always assumed that, had there been a shred of truth to the claims, it was something he had taken an interest in during his time with the Death Eaters. It had never occurred to him that he could have been involved with it earlier. But having watched Draco listen through Quirrell's explanation on the subject, in rapt attention with a suspiciously large grin and an all too familiar glint in his eyes, he was no longer quite so sure.

With a new focus on his oldest antagonist, Harry began to notice odd changes in his behaviour. He couldn't say whether the differences had developed throughout the term or that it was just different to the Draco he remembered, but they were there nevertheless. For a start, he was nearly as good in class as Harry himself (and he acknowledged there was a good deal of personal bias involved in keeping the 'nearly' in there). When he'd gone into the past, Harry had expected to outpace everyone academically, including Hermione. There was only so much natural intelligence and hard work could do for you against someone who'd been learning magic for seventeen years when you'd known about its existence for less than twelve months, after all.

Instead, he found that best minds in the year were locked in a three way battle for supremacy at the top of the class. Except, Hermione seemed to be the only one putting the effort into participating. She'd responded to the challenge he unwittingly provided when he deposed her as the house prodigy by burying herself even deeper into books than the muggleborn he had known was used to, something he felt slightly guilty about and was resolved to keep a keen eye on. On the other hand, Draco was even more laid back and arrogant than the one Harry remembered. He seemed to put no obvious extra effort in to support his results and at times seemed even more bored with the material than Harry himself, as if he too knew it all already but lacked the wonder surrounding a return to Hogwarts to sustain himself through the duller parts of schoolboy life. He had always claimed a superiority due to his father's blood and lessons, but never done anything to show it. Until now.

Whether he was aware of Quirrell's duplicity or was up to something else, Harry's duty remained the same. Follow hallowed Hogwarts tradition and watch Draco bloody Malfoy like a hawk.

Having been so rudely reminded about this year's threat to the future of wizarding Britain, Harry started thinking about what he was going to do about it. While he strongly suspected that Dumbledore would have some sort of backup plan should the Boy-Who-Lived take a year off from his annual world-saving heroics, there was no question that thwarting a dark lord together (and the Dark Lord no less) had lead to the strength of friendship between him, Ron and Hermione that had served them so well through the years. Unfortunately, the obvious 'starting point' of sorts for that adventure was a visit to Fluffy in the forbidden corridor, and although the three friends had been fairly blasé about it at the time, to someone who had lived through twenty eight years of strife the idea of introducing two eleven year old novices to a Cerberus at close proximity seemed rather irresponsible.

"And do not forget that Flying lessons will commence this Saturday afternoon at three o'clock sharp. You are all expected there on time and in full uniform. Dismissed."

McGonagall's voice broke Harry's reason of thought and installed a new one, along with a broad smile across his face. Flying. He couldn't wait to get back on a broom. He made a mental note to try and ensure that the row during that lesson that led to his installation on the House Quidditch team went exactly the same as last time. He'd get one over on Draco and get an extra year playing the sport he loved. What could be more perfect?

* * *

As Draco sat through the dying minutes of Friday afternoon potions, the first Hogwarts fortnight coming to an end, he plotted. Unusually for a green-tied pupil half-listening to his head of house while sharing the dungeons with their crimson-clad foes, such plots did not involve calculating (or more likely just guessing) the best way to send surplus potion ingredients sailing into Gryffindor cauldrons to cause optimum carnage, nor trying to botch their own work in such a way so as most of the resultant damage befell their bitter rivals. More traditionally, Draco's thinking still seemingly inevitably revolved around Harry bloody Potter.

As had happened last week, the boy had again somehow managed to silence Professor Snape's wicked wit, usually so prolific in claiming casualties down in his gloomy lair, and still the sharp tongue that Draco was so accustomed to hearing berate and belittle those not of the potions master's favoured house.

In their first lesson, seven days ago, Professor Snape had torn into his tormentor's heir with the clinical coldness that had proven so successful on their previous introduction. However, instead of buckling under the barrage of questions as he had before, the Boy-Who-Lived calmly and softly answered the questions, satisfactorily if not encyclopaedically, and when asked for the source of his new knowledge had replied in a voice so cute and innocent that Draco had nearly thrown up over his cauldron,

"I heard my mum was good at potions when she was at Hogwarts, sir, and wanted to try and be as good as she was. I thought if I read ahead I could be good like her, sir."

Before what could only be described as batting his eyes at the dumbstruck professor and earning a reprieve from the expected interrogation for the duration of the lesson. A reprieve that, apparently, also stretched into this lesson, for they were barely ten minutes from the end and Potter had not been ridiculed once. Indeed, the rest of the lions seemed to be benefitting from the newfound Harry-shield too, as they suffered far less than they otherwise might have, or, as Draco knew, would have.

This disturbing lack of weeping children in the Potions laboratory was somewhat disconcerting to someone who had grown so used to Longbottom's wails of apology, Hermione's protestations of unfairness, Potter's muttered tirades against Professor Snape... The comparative tranquility was definitely off-putting. And even more so given that Draco had absolutely no idea what had caused it.

He could think of nothing that he had done, or that he had failed to do, to cause such a dangerous deviation in general behaviour as civility on Friday afternoons. Apart from the occasional olive branch offered between lessons, a "good job in Defense" or "you did well in Transfiguration" put forward in a corridor, which Potter was still refusing to respond to with any gestures of his own, the two had hardly spoken. Which was perhaps unsurprising, given that all Draco could remember of their earlier relationship was sniping insults at each other until they progressed on to spells. That meant something had changed. And if one thing had, then others might as well. His eyes narrowed as he realised he would need to be more careful than he thought. He could not rely on future knowledge to get everything to go his way; the failed overtures towards Potter were proof of that. He would have to think.

Unfortunately, any potential détente with his scarred rival was going to have to go on hold for the weekend. If there was one event this term which Draco was determined to go ahead as it should, it was their first flying lesson. A distraction, that's what he needed, and Quidditch would fill some of his copious spare time rather nicely. Unfortunately, there was no chance of the rules being bent enough for him to get the broom he'd need to knock Higgins off the team on his own; he'd whined enough about that before. However, where one person wiggled through the rules, another might follow...

A grimace firmly settled itself on his face as he realised his only chance of making the Slytherin team was to install Potter as his red-cloaked counterpart. Again.

He grimly wondered if Slytherin would have a better chance of claiming the Cup if he did nothing. After all, Oliver Wood had taken Harry onto the team off the back of one catch without ever seeing him actually fly. Sure, he'd completely lucked out with what Draco could grudgingly admit was one of Hogwarts' finest Seekers it had ever produced, but they had to have been a bit desperate. Recalling all the times Gryffindor had been flattened when deprived of their precious golden boy (which looking back on it had been quite a lot), he could probably secure the trophy for his house simply by not getting involved.

But on the other hand, he was desperate to do something that could actually entertain him. And if he couldn't even beat an eleven year old to the snitch, well, he hardly deserved the Quidditch Cup, did he?

* * *

As breakfast came that sunny Saturday, Harry ensured that Draco got a good look at Neville's Remembrall that arrived with the morning owls. In a welcome break from the unnerving civility that the blond had given him since their clash on the train, he seemed to relish the tirade he launched at the unfortunate Longbottom and appeared just as keen to let Harry know he was up for a scrap too. Despite the sorry feelings he was having for his longtime friend's humiliation, a secret delight grew in his stomach. He _really_ wanted to play Quidditch this year.

He flew across the entrance hall and down the steps towards the patch of grass outside McGonogall's window where their flying lesson would be taking place. Lying out before him, same as before, were seventeen brooms in various states of disrepair. Taking quick advantage of being the first student to arrive, he gave all of them a good look over before standing by the one that, to his eyes at least, looked fastest. It lay still at the end of one of the lines, diagonally across from what would have been Harry's second pick at the other end of the opposite row.

The grizzled twigs and gnarled shaft meant it wasn't the one that looked least likely to fall away beneath him, but it was - or at least had once been - designed for speed rather than stability, and Harry trusted his ability to keep it off the ground. It would need some coaxing, but he was confident it could outfly the others. While it was unlikely the extra boost would be needed, with the class mostly comprising of complete beginners, he was hardly meant to pass up the opportunity when it presented itself.

Slowly - too slowly, to Harry's giddy and impatient mind - his fellow students emerged from the castle with various shades of green across their cheeks as they eyed the morning's tools. Some, like Ron, Dean and Seamus, were wearing gleeful looks of anticipation, others remained aloof or unsure, Hermione and Neville both glanced down often and nervously, as if their brooms would do them some great injury before ever taking off, and one, though the boy tried to hide it well, was almost as excited as he was.

As Professor Hooch launched into an introduction to broomstick flying and demonstrated the basic technique, two pairs of narrowed eyes caught each other from across the grass, one corner to another, standing over the best two brooms of an admittedly sorry bunch. Twin grins broke out as silent challenges were offered and accepted. Professor Hooch wouldn't know what hit her.

"Now, when I give the word, you will raise your hand and shout 'Up!'. Is that understood?"

Nervous mumbles of "Yes miss" broke out around the two lines. Harry and Draco merely held eye contact, silent.

"Now!"

"Up!" Came the cry from seventeen mouths. Harry felt the broomstick he was standing over slam into his palm even as he watched Draco's do the same. Both grins edged wider as the two boys held their gazes across the carnage, barely taking in the rest of the brooms. As before, some had flown into the awaiting hands (though none with as satisfying a smack as his and Draco's had), others made feeble attempts at hovering or rolling along the ground, and most stayed flat in place on the turf.

"Don't be disheartened! You need to establish control over your broomstick. Be firm, be confident, and command your broom to rise 'Up!'" Professor Hooch's shrill voice instructed them.

A few more yelled instructions from teacher to pupil and from pupil to broomstick, and most of the first years had a broom in their hand. Hooch began her round checking everyone's grip. As she corrected Draco's, rather than looking put out at being told he was "Doing it wrong for years, Mr. Malfoy!", his smile grew and his face took on an image of gleeful excitement that would have worried Harry had he not been doing exactly the same. As the flying Professor ended by him at the end of the second row ("Perfect grip, Mr. Potter, your father would be proud!"), the proverbial butterflies swirled in his stomach for what he knew was about to come next.

He knew, as an experienced flyer and concerned friend, that he should really be helping the less confident Gryffindors with hints and encouragement, but the anticipation was becoming too much to bear. Convincing himself that this was acceptable with the half truth that, as he had supposedly never flown before, no-one should really be coming to him looking for advice, he continued trying to out-stare Draco, both of them oblivious to world around them other than the professor's voice.

"On my word, and not before, you will begin to - Mr. Longbottom!"

The grounded first years watched in amazement as Neville, in his nerves, pushed off too hard and too soon and slowly yet inexorably made his way further and further from the ground. Harry broke off his staring match with Draco to track the poor boy as he went on upwards, a terrified look on his face as his body began to tremble.

"Mr. Longbottom! I insist you come down this instant!"

Startled, Neville unwittingly obeyed the hawkish Professor, slipping from his broom and making a noisy but brief descent before splattering into the dirt in front of her with an ominous crack. Harry knew he should be feeling worry and concern for his friend, but as he watched the Remembrall roll out from one of his pockets, all he felt was anticipation for the coming confrontation. Casually wondering if this reaction made him a bad person, he was practically bouncing on the spot as Hooch approached the unfortunate boy lying on his face on the ground in front of them.

"Are you alright?" Her question was sharp but not unkind as she rolled him onto his back and began examining him for injuries.

Neville merely moaned in response as he held his hand up to the instructor, and after one look at his wrist she announced she was taking him to the hospital wing, leaving behind her strict warning as she left:

"Anyone who fails to keep both feet firmly on the ground will be out of Hogwarts before they can say 'Quidditch'!"

Barely had Professor Hooch left their sight with the wounded Neville when Draco's voice rang out invitingly to Slytherin cheers as he passed the Remembrall between one hand and the other.

"Well, what do we have here? No wonder Longbottom can't stay on his broom, he can't even look after himself on the ground!"

"Give that back, Malfoy!" Parvati protested.

"Yeah, that's Neville's, not yours!" shouted Ron, rather optimistically.

"No actually, I don't think I will. Unless anyone's going to make me?"

The famous Malfoy drawl came to the fore as the boy himself fixed his eyes on Harry. The unspoken challenge in his gaze did not go unanswered and Harry almost had one leg over his broom before he'd even begun his reply.

"I will."

Draco kicked off with just as much as eagerness and turned to smile behind him.

"Well, come and get it then."

More than ready to do just that, both of Harry's feet sprung straight and wind splattered past his face as he quickly ascended to where Malfoy was floating, lazily holding the lost Remembrall out in front of him, then nudged himself just a little bit higher. He did want to make his dive and catch as impressive as possible, after all. His eyes darted between his rival and his target, and he prepared himself to strike.

"Now, where should I put this..." Even by Malfoy standards, the arrogance in his voice was so exaggerated that Harry was sure the boy was enjoying this almost as much as he was. Cocky prat.

"Enough Malfoy, give that back." From the look in his eyes, Harry knew that Draco was just as aware as he was that he was merely going through the motions before what was to come. There was no turning back now. "You're not so confident without your dumb bodyguards up here to protect you, are you?" Although to be fair to him, Draco didn't exactly look scared. Rather the opposite.

"Just because Crabbe and Goyle may be too heavy to fly doesn't mean I appreciate you insulting my friends." That threw Harry a bit. "Catch, Potter!" And the Remembrall had been sent soaring into the distance.

With his gaze fixed on the falling sphere, Harry shot after it. Draco had put a slight spin on it, he noted, and it was beginning to twist round to the left. Letting his instincts take over, he began his pursuit, barely noticing the roar of blood sounding in his ears, or the rush of air past his cheeks. Barely a metre from the ground, he stooped in his broom and plucked the Remembrall out of the air, before pulling up sharply and landing back on the ground, ball momentarily forgotten and flush with the feeling of victory.

"HARRY POTTER!"

McGonagall's voice blasted apart his little revery and Harry turned to look at her. The same instincts which had guided him to his quarry now also caused him to tremble a little as he watched the stern witch approaching. He might know what was about to happen, but no-one could help from feeling at least a little bit queasy when rounded on so thoroughly.

Sometimes it was impossible not to react to people rather than events. Future knowledge did little to quell his stomach when he was fixed with a look and a dangerously calm voice saying,

"With me please, Mr. Potter."

But as soon as her back turned, and Harry finally knew for certain that they were heading not to McGonagall's office, the scene of so many dressings down over the years, but to the classroom where Wood was currently sitting in, it was all he could do not to break out in a grin.


	4. Chapter 4: Halloween

A/N: This is the first chapter I'm not sure about; it feels a bit unfocused to me. However, I'm not sure what to do about it, so here it goes anyway. After this, longer term (and more original) plots will be coming; certainly a few answers (and hopefully more questions) will be apparent by Christmas.

4\. Halloween

One person who was not bothering with trying to keep a grin off his face from the afternoon's flying lesson adventure was Draco. Really, it had all gone perfectly, from the conspiratorial smirks he'd gotten from his fellow Slytherins during the confrontation to the cheers afterwards. Potter had taken the bait, acted exactly as expected, and if the fact that McGonagall had overlooked that Draco himself was still hovering above his year mates in defiance of Professor Hooch's instructions meant anything, it was that she was salivating over the prospect of a secret weapon enough to give Potter the vacant Seeker's spot immediately.

Confirmation that the outcome of the day's events hadn't changed from their previous iteration came at dinner, when Potter came down to the Great Hall with an insufferably happy expression plastered over his face and surrounded by a large throng of excited Gryffindors loudly whispering in what they no doubt considered a subtle manner. Watching the constant exchange of glances between the giddy first years and their head of house, Draco wondered if there was anyone on the Slytherin table who didn't know that something was up.

"Potter looks surprisingly happy for someone who's supposed to have nearly gotten himself expelled." Blaise said from beside him.

This stumped Crabbe and Goyle, who were sitting opposite them and had been alternating between stuffing their mouths from their own plates and stealing food off each other's.

"How's he still here if he got expelled?"

Draco sighed. He'd been hoping to postpone their next 'lesson' for as long as possible, so he did the only thing he could. He ignored the two gorillas-in-training and turned back to Blaise.

"They can't possibly punish their golden boy. The brat probably got rewarded for managing not to get himself killed."

He supposed that kind of counted as an answer to Crabbe's question. It was hard to tell, since he and Goyle had evidently decided that a single sentence was more than enough conversation for one meal time and returned their interest to their food.

Blaise snorted. "No doubt he gained Gryffindor points for showing 'outstanding moral fibre'."

"You don't know the half of it." Draco muttered.

"And I suppose you do?" Theo asked sarcastically from his other side.

Draco smiled, pleased that his dorm mates were regaining some of their former bite. This year might be redeemable after all.

"I think I do, actually. Given McGonagall didn't acknowledge that I was also in the air at the time, we can rule out any punishment. She might be mad enough to take points from her own house, but she wouldn't miss the chance to knock us down a few pegs either." He replied to satisfied nods around him.

He continued. "As she didn't notice me, she was obviously distracted by something big. She only gets that excited by Transfiguration or Quidditch..."

He hesitated. To reveal, or not to reveal? The other Slytherins took his hesitation as a dramatic pause and dutifully leaned in closer.

"... so I can only conclude that they've taken even more leave from their senses than usual and given him their vacant seeker's spot."

Gasps from his end of the table revealed he'd had a larger audience than he thought. Good. The more people learned of his amazing powers of deduction the better.

Theo was first to break the silence. "Seeker? Yeah, right. Potter hadn't even been on a broom before."

"It's the only spot which is available on the Gryffindor team, and can you think of anything besides Quidditch that would get McGonagall so worked up? They got flattened last year without a decent seeker."

"So it's your fault if he turns out to be good then?" Blaise smirked.

"It's Potter. Knowing Gryffindor they'd have put him on anything that could fly and awaited a miracle regardless of what I'd done." Draco definitely didn't want to get blamed for the rise of the youngest seeker in a century. Hopefully, he'd be able to get his spot on the Slytherin team as soon as possible and be able to stop the Boy-Who-Lived's meteoric rise through Hogwarts Quidditch legend before it had even started.

Nods of agreement went around the table. So far, everything Potter had touched had turned to gold, from his homework to his practical abilities in class, and it was damned annoying to all of them. Draco couldn't quite remember when he had begun to become ordinary academically in the previous timeline, but couldn't wait for it to start as soon as possible.

"The brat's far too irritating his own good. I still can't believe he managed to charm Professor Snape." Theo grumbled.

They'd all been told great tales of the Potions Professor's wrath by the older Slytherins, and had been eager to watch him eviscerate their Gryffindor counterparts, and were almost as confused as Draco was as to how this year's batch had managed to escape. Unsurprisingly, they blamed Potter despite not understanding what was going on.

"Me neither, Theo." Draco replied. "Me neither."

* * *

Later that week, a long, thin package arrived at the Gryffindor table, carried between six owls. Harry grabbed both parcel and letter and, leaving his breakfast bacon to be finished by the feathered messengers, raced out of the Great Hall towards the common room, closely followed by the rest of his year. Having forewarned them that there was a chance that something interesting might be coming with the post this week, he was pleased to see that they were all excited enough to follow him back to the boys' dormitory in Gryffindor tower, though the girls were somewhat less eager about it and Hermione still had a book in her hands.

"What is it?" Ron asked impatiently.

Laying the broomstick down on his bed such that the attached envelope was underneath it (what a shame it would be if McGonagall's warning not to open his new broom in front of other people didn't get read until it was too late), Harry tore into the packaging. When was done, he stepped back to admire his new treasure with the others.

"A Nimbus 2000! They're the best brooms in the world!" This time it was Seamus who couldn't contain his excitement.

"Woah, Harry! How did you get that?" Dean, as a muggleborn, mightn't have known exactly how good the broom was, but he could tell from the longing stares of the other four boys just how lucky Harry was to have one.

"I don't know." Finally picking up the attached note, Harry read it out to the gathered throng. "'Dear Harry, this package contains your new broom. Do not open it in front of the other students.' Oops." He added, looking around at the eight first years crammed into the boys' dormitory, though he didn't sound particularly sorry.

He continued. "'Please meet Oliver Wood on the Quidditch pitch at six o'clock this evening for your first training session. Good luck. Professor McGonagall.' Wow, she must have been really impressed!"

"But you broke the rules!" Hermione protested.

"Yeah, to protect Neville." At Harry's reply, she looked somewhat mollified, though Neville himself had turned bright red. "I was only trying to look after my friends."

"Besides, we need a seeker if we're going to win the Quidditch Cup." Ron argued, which Harry knew for sure wouldn't help to convince Hermione but was equally certain that Ron wouldn't understand why. "You, the youngest seeker in a century, Harry. Blimey."

Harry reverently picked up his new broom wit a touch of wonder. No matter how attached he'd grown to his beloved Firebolt, bought for him by a godfather he hadn't been with for long enough, or any of his subsequent brooms after the war against Voldemort had ended, he'd always harboured a particular nostalgic soft spot for his old Nimbus. As all retired Quidditch players insisted, you never did forget your first.

* * *

By lunchtime, the famed Hogwarts rumour mill had ensured everyone knew about the youngest seeker in a century, and it was straight after dinner that Draco marched down the dungeon corridors to confront Professor Snape about displacing Terence Higgs on the Slytherin team.

"Enter." Came the curt response when he knocked on his Head of House's office door.

"Ah, Draco." Professor Snape's voice warmed appreciably when he saw who had disturbed him. "What can I do for you?"

"Potter's been made the Gryffindor seeker."

Snape's face darkened. "Much to my displeasure, I assure you. I have protested about his appointment to Professor Dumbledore at great length, but it would appear that our esteemed headmaster -"

"I want the spot on the Slytherin team."

Professor Snape's was surprise was great enough that he seemed to forget he had been interrupted, but recovered himself as quickly as Draco had expected.

"Slytherin has a seeker." He pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

"And you're confident in him?"

Snape paused.

"Higgs will not go down as one of our truly gifted seekers, that much is true, but he has proved more than adequate in dispatching the fools and weaklings that fly for the other houses, I assure you." The professor's gaze fell on the Quidditch Cup standing proudly in a glass cabinet in the corner of the room, gleaming silver with green ribbons proudly hanging from its handles.

"Have you seen Potter fly?"

"No, but I doubt that -" For a second, Snape looked like he was struggling not to insult Potter, but true to his seemingly neutral view he'd taken of his old target since Draco had returned to his first year managed to avoid it. "- boy is going to cause us a particular problem. Professor McGonagall must be truly desperate to invite someone so young to the team."

McGonagall might have been desperate, but she'd also happened to strike gold.

"Well, I have." Draco answered his own question. "And he's good. Very good. Maybe even good enough to make up for the rest of his team."

"And I suppose you happen to be a Quidditch prodigy as well, then?"

Draco responded by meeting his Professor's steely gaze with one of his own. He wasn't sure if it would work, what with him having the face of an eleven year old again, but it seemed to get the job done.

"Fine." Snape relented. "I will inform Flint that you are challenging Higgs for the position. I trust you realise that if your flying does not match up to your boasts he will be most displeased." The look he gave Draco was enough to know that Flint's displeasure would be the least of his worries if it was found he was wasting everyone's time.

"Don't worry sir. It will."

So it was that Draco found Marcus Flint standing in front of the two seekers the next evening, looking large, powerful, and rather unimpressed that he'd had to postpone his training session midway through the third week of term to sort out some uppity brat demanding the seeker position. Draco knew that the older boy cared enough about the house team that, if he proved himself better than Higgs, all the brutal dislike radiating from the captain would be forgotten, but he was very glad he wouldn't be wasting the older boy's time. The joke whispered (very quietly) around the common room was that if he ever got injured before a match, the Slytherin Quidditch team could easily replace Flint with a rhinoceros. He was definitely someone you didn't want to be on the wrong side of.

Rain dribbled slowly from an overcast sky as the three of them stood glaring at each other in the September breeze. Finally, as if sensing that Draco wasn't going to give up and leave him in peace simply because he was being stared at, Flint began to outline the tasks.

"Ok. Test One. Catch the snitch. If Terence catches it, he stays. If Malfoy catches it, we move on to the next challenge. Understand?"

They both nodded. It wasn't complicated, and Draco wasn't overly upset about the disparity between what they each had to do to see off the other. If he was in Flint's place, he'd want to get this over with as soon as possible, while protecting his current seeker from a fluke result.

"Go!"

Flint had released the snitch before yelling at them to follow, and by the time the word had left his mouth both seekers were in the air. Draco soared upwards on the reasonably new broom he had convinced a third year to lend him for the challenge. His father always had given him his pocket money with the advice to 'invest it well', and Draco was perfectly happy to do just that.

He felt the wind whip through his hair, and he found himself momentarily lost in the thrill of flying. He hadn't had a decent broom since he'd come back, and hadn't been flying since... long before that. Stirring himself again, he concentrated. He had a job to do.

Two and a half hours later, having been raced, soaked, shot at and rammed, Draco was stood smiling on the grass. He was Slytherin's newest seeker.

* * *

September passed into October and Harry was beginning to find a routine amongst the madness of Hogwarts. He excelled through his classes and homework (taking care not to make his brilliance appear too effortless), led his merry band on more kitchen raids (although these tended to be before curfew on weekends or when they had suitable 'distractions' organised), and was brutally reintroduced to Oliver Wood's punishing Quidditch training schedule. In short, he hadn't been as happy in a long, long, time.

So it was that when the leaves had turned a golden brown and fallen from the trees around Hogwarts, and the first years had started to get their first tastes of what winter in the Scottish highlands would be like, Harry found himself looking forward to the Halloween feast as a celebration of two months well spent. With the eight Gryffindor first years more united than before, a consequence of the shared adventures to the kitchens, he was confident that no-one would throw a tantrum and unwittingly endanger themselves should Quirrell use the same opportunity to unleash a troll on Hogwarts as he had last time.

As the week leading up to Halloween went on, Hagrid was regularly spotted hauling enormous pumpkins on his shoulders up to decorate the Great Hall. Ghosts were getting more and more animated as the date approached and as even the first years, with no expectation of what was to come, picked up on the excitement, Harry found it easy to convince himself that the worst consequences of the night would be a bad case of indigestion from overindulgence.

Still, he found himself glad to find that Professor Flitwick was covering the hovering charm again in their lesson that day. He doubted it would be needed quite so soon - and wouldn't put many galleons on anyone getting the same slice of luck necessary to use it effectively against the troll if it was - but took some hope that it was another tool available to them.

"Wingardium Leviosa, remember! Swish and flick!"

The former duellist was standing in front of the class, dwarfed by the lectern beside him, as he repeatedly exaggerated the pronunciation of the charm and demonstrated the wand movement.

"Off you go now!"

With that, everyone was trying the charm out for themselves, and most attempts to enunciate as clearly as Flitwick had were foiled immediately as the version of the spell they had in their minds was mixed up with the incorrect adaptations of the students either side of them.

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

Harry's feather fluttered from his desk and rose above their heads.

"Oh look, Mr. Potter's done it! Mr. Potter's done it!"

The class ignored their professor's congratulations, being both used to Harry being the first to pull off any particular spell, and by now aware that Flitwick would take the same excited tone with everyone who managed the charm, no matter how long it took them. Harry himself felt an irrational flicker of pride at the words; surpassing other first years was hardly an achievement, but even two months into the year the novelty of being a star pupil hadn't quite worn off yet.

"Oh, oh, oh! There goes Miss Granger's! Very good! Take five points each for Gryffindor."

Harry turned to Hermione beside him, whose feather had now joined Harry's floating near the ceiling of the classroom, and they shared a smile. Truthfully, Harry still felt that the bookworm was more withdrawn than he'd like; while she had dutifully joined in with any scheme he'd led so far, there wasn't the same hunger to plan their exploits as he'd become accustomed to with her older self.

He sighed. Judging his friends by the adults he had known was selfish, irritating, and seemingly inevitable. He tried to limit the unfair comparisons as much as he could, but memories of the wizards and witches they had been still dominated his mindset. The only resolution he could think of was to help them to grow into those people as soon as they were able, and if he could help balance them as they grew up, so much the better. With Hermione, he couldn't help but feel his newfound position as top of Gryffindor had driven his bushy haired friend even deeper into the world of books and study in order to try and keep up, and felt slightly bad that he was stealing her position in the natural order of things from her. He consoled himself with the knowledge that once the going got tough, her quicker mind would start absorbing new material far faster than he possibly could.

He gently let his feather drop back onto his desk and watched her do the same before she turned to help Ron, who'd encountered the same pronunciation issues that had held him back last time he'd say through the class. Harry was pleased to note the attentive manner on his friend, as he sat through the corrections without complaint. Maybe, just maybe, he was making a difference indeed.

By the end of the period about half the class had cracked the spell and the other half were given instructions to spend time practicing before the next lesson, while everyone was given a foot to write on the theory. As they exited the classroom together, Hermione started to head for the library.

"Where are you off to?" He asked after her.

"The library."

"You can't be starting on the essay already?" Ron asked in a strange mixture of awe and horror.

Hermione gave him a playful glare. "One foot is hardly an essay, Ron, and no, I'm not. I've got some important reading on wizarding culture to do."

"Ok, then." Harry gave a weak smile, his thoughts returning to whether he was pushing her further into books than was really healthy. "Make sure you're back well in time for dinner. We wouldn't want to miss you during the Halloween feast, after all." Or any chaos and danger that could come afterwards, he added mentally.

"I will be. See you then." And with a nagging feeling that he really shouldn't have left her go, Harry watched her disappear down the corridor.

But when dinner came, there was still no sign of Hermione. Unfortunately, not realising this until he'd sat down with the other Gryffindor first years, there was little Harry could do to change this without making a scene. She had to be just running late. There was no reason for her to miss the feast this time, was there?

"You okay, Harry?" Ron asked.

"Have you seen Hermione yet? At this rate she'll miss the start of the feast." The Great Hall was filling up faster than usual, but she was still nowhere to be found.

"She's probably still in the library. Wouldn't surprise me if she read her way right through dinner, that one." The sudden appearance of a large bowl of potatoes in front of him put an end to any more hypothesising. "Food!"

Harry found himself struggling to match Ron's level of enthusiasm as they both helped themselves to the meal. While the redhead seemed to be undertaking his own personal crusade to relieve the groaning table of as much weight as possible, Harry's stomach seemed to have frozen over. He was no longer surprised when, somewhere between Ron's second and third helpings of a particularly juicy leg of lamb, the doors at the back of the hall burst open and Professor Quirrell rushed into the room.

"Troll! Troll in the dungeons!" He yelled, manically raving up to the other Professors. Upon covering two thirds of the distance from the doors to the staff table, he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and looked around the room at the hordes of startled students. "Thought you'd want to know." He added calmly, before dropping over in a faint.

Harry counted the heartbeats of silence before pandemonium broke out. One, two. The Great Hall sat as one as if petrified, staring at the fallen body of their Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Three, Four. Then a second year Hufflepuff screamed, and the noise broke the enchantment that seemed to have stilled them as loud conversations erupted from every end of the four tables.

"Silence!" Bellowed Dumbledore, muting the room once more. Whether magically or by sheer force of presence, it was an impressive achievement.

"Prefects, lead your houses back to your common rooms. Teachers, to me. Be calm and follow instructions, and there is no reason for any of you to be in any danger."

Harry, who was currently panicking and preparing to charge right into that danger, looked desperately around the room for a way out of the madness. Hermione was supposed to be in the library, but given her lateness could have got sidetracked anywhere by now. He watched the other three houses file out behind their prefects, and realised his best chance of losing the other Gryffindors was to join the end of the line and ditch them en route to the common room. Idly, a part of him wondered how sensible sending the Slytherins back to their common room was if the troll was supposed to be in the same part of the castle, but he supposed if three first years were capable of incapacitating it, then an entire house including seventh years would likely have few problems either, especially with some of the curses in the arsenals of the more morally ambiguous snakes.

Shaking his head clear (the safety of Slytherin house wasn't important at the moment, Hermione's was), his opportunity to duck out of the way and hunt down Hermione before the troll could arose as the rest of the Gryffindors turned a corner and he doubled back out of sight of the rest of his house. He was away.

"Harry?"

Ok, maybe he wasn't quite away as freely as he thought he was. Turning to the interrupting voice, he tried to explain.

"Hermione wasn't at the feast, Ron. She doesn't know about the troll."

The expression on Ron's face changed from shock that he'd been taken away from his dinner to shock that his friend was in danger.

"What're we doing about it?"

"We're going to find her." Harry said with more confidence than he felt, stressing the first word. He wanted Ron to be part of this.

The redheaded boy gulped, nodded, and started down the corridor where Harry was headed. Harry bounded back into the lead and started to plan.

"Ok, she was in the library, so we'll head there, find her at a desk, and hide until Madam Pince tells us its safe again."

Despite the rather sketchy plan (if Madam Pince was there, why did they need to protect Hermione?) Ron huffed his agreement.

"Right." Pant. "She's a librarian. Its a noisy troll. Natural enemies."

Suppressing a smile, Harry hoped it would be that easy. He was suddenly disabused of this notion by the sound of loud sobbing coming from an all too familiar bathroom on the first floor.

He'd deliberately chosen his route to pass by the place in the fear of fate playing the scenario just as it had last time, and it seemed well that he had as he barrelled into the loo screaming Hermione's name.

"Harry!" Ron whispered loudly in a somewhat scandalised tone. "That's a girl's bathroom!"

"Hermione's in trouble!" Harry called back out to him. If more of their escapades played out as they had in his former past, they'd best get acquainted with entering girls' bathrooms fairly soon. It seemed enough to satisfy his friend, as Ron cautiously entered too, closing the door behind him.

The witch herself poked her head out of a stall, with eyes red and puffy from weeping, hair tussled all over the place and her voice quivering.

"Harry?"

"Hermione! Are you alright? Are you upset because someone insulted you?"

It wouldn't be true - couldn't be true - he'd done so much to get her involved with their fellow first year Gryffindors and the accompanying night time adventures; they battled it out at top of the class, so she couldn't be considered more of a know-it-all than him - but despite all that was different, somehow the outcome had stayed the same, and he had to ask the question.

"N-n-no." She said hesitantly after a pause. "No-no-one's insulted me. I'm crying because -" A sniff "- because I was ch-ch-chased by a tr-troll."

It was then that Harry, with Ron beside him, became aware of the stench filling his mouth and nose, and the door to the toilets shattered in a shower of splinters and a bestial roar.


	5. Chapter 5: A Troll

5\. A Troll

Every now and then, during his years as an auror, Harry had had to chase down the occasional loose troll roaming around the country, and always did so with a slight smile on his face as he thought back to where his death defying antics had begun all those years ago (at least, those he could remember). With extensive planning, a well trained team behind him, and over a decade experience of putting his life on the line, it had always amused him to think that it had seemed such an impossible challenge all that time ago.

Now, in the cramped confines of the bathroom with no plan, no time, and only two preteens for backup, a rampaging troll suddenly seemed a lot scarier. As it happened, twelve feet of muscle, trollhide, and terrible stink looked much bigger as a mere eleven year old. The troll was every bit as large as any he'd faced, with the same long, wooden club clutched tightly in its right hand, just as he'd remembered. He watched in horror as it gave a loud snort before raising its weapon and advancing on the huddled children.

Dimly aware of Ron and Hermione screaming behind him, Harry drew his eleven inches of holly and phoenix feather and turned to face his opponent side on, wondering what on earth he was going to do. Trolls had a natural resistance to most offensive magic not unlike that which Hagrid had taken advantage of in the war against Voldemort, and he wasn't really too sure he wanted to break out any of the more dubious spells he'd picked up in Auror training in front of his friends (and any Professors that may examine the scene afterwards). However, if he didn't, there might not be much of his friends left to remember seeing him cast them...

"Lumos!" came a shout from behind him.

Ron, it seemed, had panicked and cast the first spell they'd learned in Defense Against the Dark Arts that he could think off. Watching the troll squint, Harry realised this was actually a fairly good idea. While trolls were not afraid of light, per se, their primitive eyes were very sensitive to it, living as they did in the caves and underground caverns of the world. If they could drive it out of the bathroom, then maybe they could find enough room to get away.

"Lumos!" he roared, adding his light to Ron's.

Now faced with two pricks of light in its path, the troll began to slow its advance, stopping barely three metres from the two wizards as they poured everything they had into the spell.

Hardly daring to believe this was working, Harry took a tentative step forwards, with Ron hesitantly advancing until they were side by side and then mirroring his footsteps. The troll took a step back, scrunching up its eyes into ugly balls of wrinkles and grunting it's displeasure. They stepped forwards. The troll stepped back again... and then again... and then into the sink behind it.

Deprived of an easy escape route, it suddenly gave a great roar of anger and rushed at the two wizards. Harry grimaced; trolls were famously as prickly as they were stupid, and having apparently exhausted its avenue of escape, this one had decided that the best course of action would be to remove the source of the offending lights as quickly as possible. Which, of course, meant them.

Pushing a startled Ron to the left, he used the momentum to throw himself to the right, the two Gryffindors only just opening up a gap between them large enough for the troll to fit through as it charged towards them. Turning to watch the creature continue past them at full speed, he winced as a thundering smash echoed around the room when flesh and brick met in a collision that shattered the mirrors caught near the crash. Still part blinded by the bright lights which had been shining into its eyes so recently, the troll hadn't been able to tell how long the bathroom was and had run straight into the far wall.

"It's bad luck to break a mirror, you know." Harry muttered at the troll. He knew this was only true for certain particularly cursed mirrors (Merlin knew he'd seen enough of them raiding old Death Eater homes), but was still hoping that old superstitions would prove right anyway and that the creature would be frustrated in its search for a snack.

Dazed, it swung around back towards its quarry, destroying the far toilet stall with a lazy swing of its club as it did so. A piercing wail came from what was left of it, and the boys suddenly realised that Hermione had ducked inside when the troll had charged and was now in even more trouble than they were. The shout also drew the attention of the troll, and it turned back to the shower of splinters covering a cowering Hermione and what was left of the toilet amongst the wreckage, intent on investigating the noise with its wooden weapon. Sharing a quick glance, Harry and Ron both focused their wands on the club, casting the spell they'd learnt that day.

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

Pitch-perfect enunciation.

The troll swung it's arm down, but not before Harry and Ron had prised the club from its grasp. The beast seemed surprised that Hermione hadn't turned into a puddle of crimson goo before realising that it's weapon had disappeared and was now floating serenely above its head.

Taking advantage of the moment of confusion, Harry stuck out his right arm and silently summoned Hermione to him, figuring it would be easier to bashfully confess how he had _really_ wanted his friend to get away from the troll than to try explain how he'd magically mastered fourth year summoning charms.

Fortunately, Hermione wasn't stuck on anything and came flying over the rubble-that-used-to-be-a-bathroom towards him.

Unfortunately, between the two of them was an oblivious Ron. Hermione collided into him, knocking him off his feet, and their momentum continued to carry them both into a hapless Harry. Panicked, he was able to stop them, but not before being knocked over himself, and soon the three friends were collapsed on the floor in a pile of limbs, wands arrayed uselessly around the floor, and Harry flinched as he waited for a smack or a stomp that would signal the end of their all too brief adventures, and the start of Mr. Filch's most challenging bathroom clean-up ever...

It was a blow that wasn't to come. The troll, apparently mesmerised by the floating club, had been staring straight up at the weapon and made to grab it just as Ron and Hermione had made contact with Harry. Both startled, Ron and Harry had had their concentration on the hovering charm broken, and the great weapon had started to drop just as the troll's grubby fingers snatched at the air where the handle had been a mere fraction of a second to go. Immediately underneath the club was the bridge of the creature's nose, and with a crunch that was entirely lost to the three young wizards lying tangled on the floor, the troll was knocked out and it's body was now lying prone at the opposite end of what was left of the bathroom.

At least this time his wand wasn't covered in troll bogies.

So it was that a hurried assembly of professors arrived at the scene to find the three first years huddled in a heap on the floor, an unconscious troll in the opposite corner of the room, and general chaos everywhere in between. Extracting themselves from their predicament, the blushing Gryffindors looked up to the teachers, trying to figure out how they were going to explain what had been going on.

At least Snape and Quirrell weren't back yet, thought Harry, as he glanced at the unamused faces staring back down at them.

"Err..."

"I think, Mr. Potter, we'd all like an explanation as to how the troll, and indeed yourselves, ended up in this situation." Professor Dumbledore asked, not unkindly.

Too late, Harry realised that making the first sound had been a mistake, and he was now going to have to come up with plausible excuses as to why none of them should face any punishment. He decided that, seeing how he didn't remember the exact aftermath of his previous troll-fighting exploits, the sentence couldn't have been that bad, he swallowed his nerves and began to tell the story.

"So, we were following the prefects back to Gryffindor tower like we were supposed to..." - frantic nodding from Ron - "... When we realised that Hermione didn't know about the troll, since she wasn't at the feast, so we thought we should..."

When he had finished his tale, his impromptu audience was looking aghast at the fact three first years had come across the troll and somewhat impressed that they had managed to take it down. Unfortunately, by the time he had explained everything that he could, Snape had joined them, and Harry hoped his new hold over the man would still any biting response he might expect. Sure enough, although he was sure the Potions Professor had sneered slightly while giving a definite glance down to the Gryffindor insignia on his robes, there was no further comment from his old least-favourite teacher (and given how many of his teachers had tried to kill him, that was quite an accolade).

Finally, Dumbledore gave them all a solid look before speaking up. "A wonderful tale, we can agree, and a sure testament to the strength that exists when we act out of love for one another. I must, however, warn you -" At this his voice grew, if not quite strict, at least more stern, "- that you should, as I assume you are quite aware, leave any future heroics to the school prefects and staff. Are we clear?"

Three short heads bobbed up and down at him. From the shaking beside him, Ron and Hermione were still in shock at the whole episode, and Harry was more troubled than he'd care to admit. They had been in far more danger than he had expected, and he would have to think carefully over what a smaller physique and limited spell repertoire would mean for any other 'future heroics'. He wasn't the force he was used to, and after many years of professionally planned auror raids he wasn't as adjusted to the old battleplan of 'just winging it' as he might have liked.

The other part of him, the one he was struggling to suppress, was delighted with the adrenaline pumping through his veins and was chomping at the bit at the prospect of more action. It had been too long since the three of them had had a chance to adventure together, in either timeline.

"In that case, I think we can award twenty points each to Gryffindor for looking out for one's friends."

Once they realised they were in no further trouble, and were about to be dispatched with Professors McGonagall and Pomfrey for hot chocolate laced with calming draught and an early bed, the three first years relaxed, and broke out with fragile smiles and snuck glances at each other.

Fighting a troll together really did form bonds between people.

"There was one thing, however, I don't understand. Miss Granger, why weren't you at the feast in the first place?"

It was McGonagall that had spoken, and Harry was both eager for and dreading the answer. He was mystified as to why Hermione had spent so long in the library - she was, after all, still Hermione, but she hadn't yet missed a meal through studying. He half recalled her saying she was looking into "wizarding culture", but had no idea what could have caused her to miss the Halloween feast they'd been looking forward to all week for.

"I... I was reading about some things in the library, and, well, it's..."

Having just calmed herself at the thought of hot chocolate and rest, the girl's calm facade was threatening to break, and she sniffed slightly as she made to go on.

"It's... It's just... It's all..."

Despite themselves, everyone listening to her leaned in slightly, which proved only to their detriment when the dam finally broke.

"It's all slave labour!"

As her voice quivered and wet streaks gleamed across her cheeks, her audience looked around uncertainly. Harry meanwhile, having an inkling of what was about to happen, was very much relieved not to be the main recipient of the suspected forthcoming outburst.

At the confused looks she was receiving, Hermione continued wailing.

"The slaves do everything! They do our cooking, our cleaning, our washing -"

Hermione had worked herself into such a state that Harry feared she was about to tear her 'slave-cleaned' cloak off in the corridor. Thankfully, before things could progress any further, someone threw in a question.

"What slaves?"

Hermione stared back, aghast.

"The house elves!"

"House elves?"

"And where, Miss Granger, did you come across house elves?" Snape sneered.

"It was when we went to the - I mean, we, err, read about them in the library, and they're here, in Hogwarts, even though they're not mentioned in _Hogwarts, a History,_ and they're _slaves_ , and how can you all -"

Even in her distraught state, Harry thought, poor Hermione still wasn't going to confess to breaking a rule as serious as actually going to the kitchens.

"I think, Miss Granger, that you'd best come with me."

Dumbledore's voice cut through her outburst, silencing the poor girl. Looking around at the faces that varied from confusion as to how a house elf could be counted a slave to bemusement that anyone would dare to make the comparison, Harry thought that this was probably for the best.

Especially considering what Hermione would later make of yelling at almost the entire teaching staff.

Despite herself, Hermione looked up at the venerable headmaster and asked in a small voice, "Am I in trouble?"

"Far from it, Miss Granger, but I fear that I ought to make a few explanations about the running of the castle before I release you to your bed.

"I recall that the rest of you have students to reassure, now that the threat has been so decisively dealt with?"

With the final dismissal of the gathered professors, Hermione and Dumbledore departed in the direction of his office, a reassuring arm thrown over the girl's shoulders; Harry and Ron were escorted by Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall to the hospital wing for calming draughts (and the promised hot chocolates), and the other teachers scattered to their respective duties now that the excitement had passed. The only people staying at the scene were Professors Snape and Vector, who Harry assumed were making sure the troll didn't wake up and would hopefully clear up some of the debris before Filch arrived and demanded his expulsion.

Seeing Snape flick his wand pointedly at his fallen foe made Harry wonder how Quirrell's attempt at the philosopher's stone had gone. If things had panned out the same way as last time, the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor had tried to steal the near-mythical artefact while the rest of the school was preoccupied with the troll. Annoyed, Harry also realised that this would mean the man was once again responsible for his latest brush with death. Did Snape's robes hide a mangled leg? He found himself too tired to care, and let himself be led away, ready to put off dealing with further fallout till the morning. Dumbledore would hardly be taking the time to explain why Hogwarts uses house elves to a first year if the Dark Lord had just made off with the secret to immortality, after all.

* * *

"So then Dumbledore took me down to the kitchens and then we talked to the house elves, like had an actual conversation with them, rather than the brief chats we'd had with them before, and then..."

Relaxing the next day in the Gryffindor common room, Harry listened to Hermione go on about her meeting with Dumbledore that Halloween night. She hadn't returned to the dormitory till very late, and far too tired to talk, so now was the first time they had to go over what had happened.

Miraculously, the Supreme Mugwump, Chief Warlock, and revered Headmaster had done that which, as far as Harry was concerned, more than matched his discovery of the twelve uses for dragon blood and was almost on par with his defeat of Grindelwald and the masterminding of the first war against Voldemort.

He had convinced Hermione Granger of the ethics of house elves.

Harry loved Hermione, but if he had to spend another year pretending to be aggrieved at the treatment of the obviously happy Hogwarts elves, he'd probably... well, spew.

After recounting her trip to the kitchens with Dumbledore, and the subsequent explanations from the house elves on exactly how and why they were quite delighted to be serving at Hogwarts, Hermione fell quiet.

"Did he talk to you about anything else?" Ron asked.

"Umm..." For some reason, Hermione threw Harry a look of slight embarrassment.

"Come on, you can tell us..." He coaxed.

"He said... um... that I shouldn't be scared of you."

"Why would you be scared of me?" Harry exclaimed, just as Ron said,

"Why wouldn't you be scared of Harry?"

At Harry's half glare, he hurriedly continued.

"I mean, he is pretty awesome, he's top of the class, and he's the youngest seeker in ages, and he just took out a troll! That's gotta be worth some scary, right?"

Harry chuckled. "You took out a troll too, Ron."

"I know, I'm terrified of me too. I'm awesome, but terrifying." The redhead grinned back.

"All of that!" At Hermione's half shout, both boys turned back to her. "I mean, I was stuck in the bathroom, trying to hide, after I'd already tried to run away, crying loads, and then you two come in, and what do you do? You just knock it out! No screaming, no crying, you just used spells _that I should know as well as you two_ and knock out a half tonne worth of meat and snot!"

"We were scared too, Hermione!" Ron urged quickly, fearing further waterworks.

"There may have been some screaming." Harry admitted.

"Lots of screaming!" Ron added.

"I know you were scared. I'd be rather worried if you hadn't been. And I'm not going to cry, so don't worry." Ron relaxed immediately, though a small sniff from Hermione belied her words. "It's just when the troll came... I panicked. Then you guys came in, didn't panic, and just did what needed to be done. You saved me, but I should have been able to do those spells just as easily as you did. Thanks for that, by the way..." She hurried the last sentence, blushing slightly, before softly continuing. "It just made me feel a bit useless, you know? It wasn't so much that I would be scared of you, more like he didn't want to think less of myself because of what you did."

"Hermione, you're not useless." Harry urged. "You were right to run away, and we had to get loads of luck to defeat the troll, and you're one of the smartest in the year, and -"

"We spoke about that as well, actually." Hermione confessed. "Dumbledore said that our year was really odd to have so many people who are so good at magic in it, and that if I was in another year I'd probably be far ahead of everyone else. The challenge is good, I guess... though it's odd not being top of the year anymore. I just need to adjust from muggle school, I think."

It can't have been anywhere near as odd to Hermione as it was to Harry, both unused to his own position and baffled by Draco's continued ascendency. Still, it was good to hear that Dumbledore seemed aware of any problems this could cause Hermione, and that she was looking forward to trying to wrest back her position of unrivalled genius.

"You are brilliant, Hermione. I'm sure you'll do better next time."

At Hermione's puzzled face, Harry realised what he'd just said.

"That's what Dumbledore said too, actually. I don't know what to think of that, I'm pretty sure that at muggle school the headmaster would be trying to ensure there wasn't a next time."

As she said this, Hermione's face looked confused rather than disappointed, and from the look Harry took a glimmer of hope.

"Though if there was, could we do it together again?"

Harry laughed, Ron beamed, Hermione smiled back, and the fateful friendship was fully reformed.

At Hogwarts, there would always be a next time.

* * *

A/N: A bit shorter, but anything else felt tacked-on and I wouldn't have the chance to go through it as thoroughly as I'd like. Don't worry Hermione fans, she'll get stronger as we go on, and if you stay with me long term, there are a couple of scenes much later on you'll quite enjoy.


	6. Chapter 6: Quidditch

6\. Quidditch

It wasn't long after what quickly became known as 'The Troll Incident' that the excitement in the castle shifted from the potential threat to their lives at the Halloween feast to the first Quidditch match of the year.

Unfortunately for Draco, both events revolved around Harry Potter. Which meant the brat was the talk of the castle for weeks.

It seemed that in the run-up to the match anyone who wasn't a Slytherin was purring over the prospect of the youngest seeker in a century, including most of the professors. He felt an irrational stab of petulance run through him; it wasn't fair. If he'd been born a mere two months later, he'd have been the record-breaker instead. As was its custom, the universe conspired to make Potter the centre of attention.

The more logical part of his mind reminded him that, as he ought to be twenty-six, he shouldn't hold a grudge against an eleven-year-old for being younger than him. He sulked anyway.

Once again, Potter should have been expelled. He'd run off and fought a troll, for Merlin's sake, endangering the lives of two other pupils as he did so. Yet once again, due to scarcely believable strokes of fortune and favouritism, he had barely a scratch to show for it. Draco had been forced to put up with his antics for seven years already; despite his best intentions, he didn't know if he had it in him to put up with seven more.

That was why the upcoming game was even more important than usual; not only was it the biggest rivalry of the season, pitting the two houses that disliked each other the most against one another, but it drew in the two most famous first years in student memory. It also gave Draco the gift-wrapped opportunity to give the Boy-Who-Lived the crushing reality check that Hogwarts so dearly needed.

He knew his plans for his reputation after the upcoming war required that the two of them didn't fall into the same spite-fuelled hatred as they had last time. But giving the most annoying brat in the school a bloody nose during a perfectly legitimate contest? That was fair game.

The only reason that captain Marcus Flint didn't have the Slytherin team practicing from end of lessons until curfew every night the week before the game was that his opposite number Oliver Wood had apparently had the same idea, and since the two teams couldn't be trusted to train at the same time without a good few fights breaking out, the two captains were limited to three days each.

However, they soon learnt that this meant that at the times which Flint did have his hands on them, he pushed them twice as hard, and it was a couple of days before the match that Draco collapsed exhausted onto one of the dark couches in the Slytherin common room, Crabbe and Goyle beside him. An adult he may be, but the crazed captain's drills were pushing his eleven year old body to the limit, and by the time the day was over he found himself entirely knackered.

Having been run through hours of Quidditch drills in preparation for the match, and then having run back to the common room just in time to make curfew (and avoid Filch), he was much too tired to feel like starting a conversation, and instead lounged back in the sofa and decided to let the others talk.

A full two minutes later, he realised that if he didn't speak, his two henchmen were most probably going to sit silence until it was time for bed.

He groaned, which coaxed a grunt from Crabbe, before trying to decide whether it would just be better to go straight to sleep after all. But other than a few dour conversations at the start of term, Draco felt that he'd been neglecting his efforts to transform the two bruisers into functioning members of society, and despite the growing feeling that it was all going to be a waste of time, convinced himself that he owed his companions another attempt.

A change of tact, perhaps. After all, repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result was practically the definition of idiocy, and if this venture was ever going to work, he'd need to be smart about it.

"Thanks, for your help this week."

There. An acknowledgement of gratitude. That was something he normally didn't bother with.

Another grunt from Goyle. But from Crabbe...

"Why?" He asked, with a puzzled look.

He might have been confused, but at least he was making the effort to participate, Draco mused.

"Well, what have you been doing for me recently?"

That could have been an unfair question. Draco made constant demands of his two companions, from "Don't put on those robes, there's juice spilt all down the front" to "Finish that essay, it's due next period and Snape will blow his top off if you lose Slytherin any more points". But that was done for the duo's own benefit, not Draco's. There was only one thing he'd specifically requested (well, ordered, but with Crabbe and Goyle it basically boiled down to the same thing) for himself.

This had stumped Crabbe, so it was Goyle who answered.

"Oh, oh, only chew with our mouths shut!"

Draco's face dropped into his palm.

"No, that was to stop the two of you from looking like savages, and to give you both a _small_ chance at not disgracing the good name of Salazar Slytherin. What did I ask you to do for me?"

"Look after you between classes!" Crabbe jumped, looking disturbingly similar to Granger on the hundreds of occasions she answered a professor's question in class.

"There we go!"

Even when he had been a scrawny preteen in both mind and body, Draco would have been the first to admit that his two associates hadn't been good for anything other than looking intimidating and taking light spellfire for him. However, with the upcoming Slytherin-Gryffindor match, and two theoretically easy-to-bully first years filling the two most important positions, those skills had suddenly become rather marketable. Neither seeker was much to look at, but since Potter had filled an otherwise empty hole in the team whereas Draco had actually displaced an existing player, the whispering said that Slytherin were the slight favourites, though the odds had narrowed significantly since the other whispering claimed Potter had taken out a troll.

The upshot of all this was that both of them had been subjected to numerous nudges, shoves, and minor jinxes in the corridors, and as such Flint had assigned Crabbe and Goyle actual bodyguard roles. Even as first years, they were easily large enough to absorb any physical knocks, and were so clumsy that it was hard to tell when they were hit by a tripping jinx and when they'd just fallen over themselves.

"Dumb Gryffindors, cheatin' already."

While Draco heartily agreed, part of the point of the exercise was to prevent any development into sycophantic yes-men, and hardening the house divide now would prove detrimental in the long run.

"That would be true, Goyle, if we didn't have our upper years giving Potter the exact same treatment." With a good dose of interest added on top, he thought. "The point is, I asked you to do something, and you're both performing well. Thank you."

Quiet descended back on the small group.

Then...

"Thanks," Crabbe said. "For saying thanks. It makes us feel 'preciated, it does."

For once, Draco smiled warmly. That was two sentences strung together! He'd have them holding a conversation in no time.

"You're welcome, Crabbe. You're very welcome."

Maybe this wasn't to be so futile after all.

* * *

"Everyone clear?" Came the question.

"Yessir!" Everyone shouted back to him. Really, it was hard not to be clear, after the instructions had been bellowed at you so loudly.

Draco stood in the Slytherin huddle in the changing room, new green robes hanging off his thin frame. Dwarfed by Marcus Flint and Terence Higgs on either side of him, his arms around their waists as theirs drooped down over his shoulders, he got the feeling that if it had truly been his first Quidditch match, he'd be feeling rather intimidated by now. The former seeker had swapped to chaser after Draco had displaced him, bulking up significantly in the process, and the captain was... well, Flint.

Of course, the fact he hadn't actually played in a decade coupled with Flint's promises of immediate evisceration if they didn't win ("Don't worry, he says that every game. Not that I've lost yet." Pucey had grinned at him after the threats) meant there was still a little room to be nervous. With a slight start, he also realised that, with a petrifying serpent, a Triwizard Tournament, and Draco's own, er, extra-curricular activities, he'd only actually completed two Quidditch seasons in the previous timeline. As nerves slithered through his system, he wondered if maybe his return to childhood had made an impact on his mind as well as his body...

"Then let's go crush 'em!" Flint finished.

Draco clutched his own Nimbus 2000 that his father had bought for him (as a congratulations-for-making-the-team present) tightly in his hand, as they emerged to find their scarlet opponents already waiting for them on the pitch. This was unsurprising, as Flint had deliberately dallied to ensure the Slytherin team came out nice and warm whereas the Gryffindors had spent almost a quarter of an hour waiting outside in the brisk November chill. Every little edge counted.

Draco watched as the two captains did their best to wrench each other's arms off. Then, at a shrill blast of Madam Hooch's whistle, the fourteen players shot off into the air, chasing after the four balls that had been released just before.

"And Angelina Johnson gets the Quaffle, soars through the air; what a girl, great talent, great looks - um, looks very natural on a broom, born to fly, sorry Professor -"

Draco gave a mental sigh as he heard Lee Jordan's voice wilt under what he imagined to be a particularly stern stare from McGonagall. He didn't know quite why they kept on such an immature and partisan student as their commentator; he could only think that if they used one student from each house they'd be too busy fighting each other to talk about the match.

"- Spinnet with the Quaffle now, trained with the team last year, now making the starting seven, nips under Flint and heads towards the goal, c'mon Alicia, show'em how it's done!"

At least with such an in depth knowledge of their opponents, and his enthusiastic cheering for Gryffindor, the Slytherin team were well-flagged for whenever they were in trouble.

Sure enough, at Jordan's unwitting warning, the Slytherin beater who had been tailing Draco turned off and whacked a bludger towards the Gryffindor chaser. At Johnson's shout, Spinnet was able to spiral away from the danger, but dropped the Quaffle as she did so, and Flint snapped it up eagerly.

"Slytherin captain in possession, darts past the Weasley twins, wake up boys, you can stop him..."

Tuning out the commentator, Draco used the opportunity while his protector was absent to climb higher above the pitch, hoping for a glint of gold amongst the grassy green. Half the pitch away, but still much closer to him than anyone else given their altitude, Potter was doing much the same thing.

Suddenly his opposite number looked up, fixed him with a grin, before dropping straight down towards the crowd of players below.

Instinctively, Draco followed, and as they shot through chasers and beaters he frantically turned his eyes this way and that, searching for a bright sheen of gold that would give away what they were heading towards. He found nothing.

"And the seekers have seen something! Ferocious dives, but where's the snitch?"

That, Draco thought, was the question, and he was no closer to finding an answer. So, a feint, was it? Well, two could play at that game. He pushed the broom even harder, plummeting towards the rapidly approaching ground. With inches to spare, the two first years pulled up simultaneously, each clutching a patch of grass plucked from the surface to show the other.

"And it's a feint! Potter and Malfoy scratching the surface, waving turf at each other; our two new seekers can certainly show off! But the dives have disrupted the Slytherin attack, Spinnet again with the Quaffle..."

Sure enough, the Gryffindor girl was streaking through the sky, passing the shattered Slytherin defence and shooting at one of their goals, past the Slytherin keeper, who promptly missed it.

"AND GRYFFINDOR SCORES! 10-0 to the boys - and girls - in red!"

A huge roar went around the stands; as usual, most of the other houses had sided against Slytherin and were heartily cheering on their opponents. Draco groaned as Potter smirked at him; it had been their battle which had set the move up.

Determined not to get caught out again, he spun away from Potter, swirling upwards to try and catch a glimpse of the golden snitch. A short time later, he still hadn't a sight of it, until -

"FOUL! A HIDEOUS BIT OF CHEATING FROM -"

McGonagall's half-hearted response was caught off in the wind, but the two of them were looking equally irate, as Flint had smashed into the Gryffindor seeker. Draco's heart jumped - the only reason for such a desperate manoeuvre would be if the snitch was about to be caught.

Sure enough, as soon as Gryffindor had put away the resultant penalty - "20 points to nil!" - his captain flew past him ominously with a look that clearly said 'don't make me cover for you again'. He redoubled his efforts, tailing Potter more closely.

The teams shared two more goals as the seekers circled high above the stadium, eyes peeled on the grounds and each other. On a bright day such as this, it was easier to see the golden snitch against the green below them than the blue above.

Without warning, his opposite number stopped in front of him, leaned back, and bounced on his broom. Confused, Draco paused to watch him, until -

\- The bucking broom! Blurred memories of a match long forgotten resurfaced as Draco remembered how Potter had lost control of his broom in his ever first match before. Seizing the opportunity, he dropped a half dozen metres, and began his search anew, confident that his opposition was distracted for the time being at least.

He wasn't the only one. With the Gryffindor team focussed on ensuring their star seeker avoided a sudden and grisly end, Flint took advantage of the confusion to score several times in succession. That wouldn't matter, though, because Draco had seen the snitch, hovering just above the ground, and Potter was nowhere near it. His Nimbus 2000 put on another burst to bring him racing downwards, a bare metre above the grass, and as he pursued it from one side of the stadium to the other, he could feel the small sphere about to rest in his fingertips, and -

WHAM!

There was a sharp pain in his side, and both boy and broom found themselves tumbling over each other across the earth. They bounced along the rough surface before coming to a painful stop when Draco's head made an abrupt and unpleasant introduction to the beam of wood holding up the Hufflepuff section of the stands. He heard a crack; he hoped it was the wood.

"And Spinnet shows her spine, an excellent block on the Slytherin seeker to save the game for Gryffindor!"

Sure. When Flint collided with Potter, it was a "disgusting bit of cheating", but when the Gryffindors smashed him off his broom, attempted murder became "an excellent block".

To her credit, Spinnet herself dismounted and helped him back to his feet with an apologetic smile that gave the impression that while she didn't regret what she'd done, she was sorry that he was the one who had to be on the receiving end of it. Bruised all over, and side still smarting, he shook his head clear and took off before the approaching Madam Pomfrey could get her hands on him.

The snitch had disappeared; the only spark he could see was from what appeared to be a small fire coming from the teacher's section of he stands. Dazed, he shook the thought out of his foggy mind (how hard had he hit his head when he'd crashed?), not pausing to wonder why the teachers would be on fire, and continued upwards. Worse still than the missing snitch, Potter had regained control of his broom, and had restarted his own search.

The game grew long, and dirty. With the goals Flint had scored while the Gryffindor players were out of position, plus the penalty he'd knocked through for the foul on Draco, Slytherin had an 80 - 30 lead. But after both seekers had been taken out, the gloves were well and truly off, and neither team seemed as interested in winning as in making sure their opponents didn't.

A chaser from each house was now tailing the opposition seeker, spiting them at every turn and getting in little kicks and bumps whenever Madam Hooch's back was turned. Spinnet evidently didn't have the stomach for such work, as Draco was marked by the more experienced Angelina Johnson, while Flint himself was determined to harry Harry. With only two chasers left each, the game became much more open, and with numerous penalties given away by both sides, the scoreline was racking up fast.

Draco could downplay the aching in his limbs, but the growing thudding in his skull was harder to ignore. A glancing blow to his forehead by a bludger added to his woes, and he could feel his reactions slowing as the game went on into the evening. Fortunately, a mixture of fear that his broom would play up again, and the personal attentions of Flint, meant that Potter was having similar troubles, and both seekers seemed more inclined to stay alive than make an effort to catch the snitch.

Ultimately though, it happened all too fast; the seekers were on other ends of the pitch when, out of the corner of his eye, he snatched a glimpse of Potter accelerate, duck under Flint, and pull up triumphantly. Slytherin had been ahead, but not by enough. The game had finished at... actually, Draco wasn't too sure what the score was, but by the celebrations of the Gryffindor players, it was obvious who had won.

Descending, he flinched as the impact of the landing jarred him after so long in the air, and then again as the captain approached him with a scowl fixed to his face.

"Malfoy!"

"Sorry, I know we nearly had them, it was... what was the final result again?"

Just as he said this, he suddenly became aware of Lee Jordan's voice triumphantly proclaiming over the fields to all who could hear him,

"GRYFFINDOR WIN, THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY TO TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY! THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY TO TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY!"

The volume made his head hurt.

Flint muttered something to Pucey beside him, before turning back to Draco.

"Who's the Minister of Magic?"

What a stupid question. Shacklebolt had been Minister ever since the fall of the Dark Lord.

"Kingsley Shacklebolt."

"Who?" asked Pucey.

"It's worse than we thought," Flint said. "Get him up to the hospital wing."

Well that wasn't what he'd expected.

"You're not mad at me?"

Flint gave him a funny look.

"Malfoy, on this team, we win or we die trying, and you came damn close to both today. Next time, we'll flatten the pricks."

* * *

After Madam Pomfrey had finished waving her wand over his torso, vanishing the numerous bruises he'd picked up in the match along the way, Harry was somewhat surprised to hear he was free to go. Despite his only previous meeting with this incarnation of the medi-witch coming immediately after The Troll Incident, when she had dispensed hot chocolate to a shaken Harry and Ron, he was much more used to his old memories of the hospital wing, where following every dangerous situation he was generally kept locked up for as long as possible afterwards.

This new freedom was possibly due to her other patient, who was sitting upright on one of the beds, loudly protesting to anyone who would listen to him that he was fine.

The sight was giving Harry quite the shock. Going into the match, he'd focussed on Draco's previous Quidditch career, which wasn't exactly stellar. The first year he'd made the team, Draco had spent so much time taunting Harry that he had missed that the golden snitch was fluttering just above his ear. In third year, their first match had been rearranged after Draco had claimed (rather farcically, in Harry's opinion) that an injury sustained to his arm had left him unable to play, and in the subsequent rescheduling Harry had caught the snitch despite only trying to once Gryffindor had gone the sixty points up they needed to win the Quidditch Cup. Two years later, Harry had once again beaten Draco, who then got Harry banned from Quidditch altogether, before abandoning the sport to focus on his nascent career as one of Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters.

The pattern was obvious; bribe his way onto the team, perform poorly on the pitch, and moan loudly about it afterwards.

Except this time, he hadn't. He'd taken over from the previous seeker in what Harry could only assume was a fair contest, given that (unlike when Draco had last made the team, who were suddenly riding brand new Nimbus 2001s) there were no new brooms awaiting the rest of Slytherin when he joined. Instead of complaining about how their defeat wasn't his fault, he was doing his best to be given a clean bill of health, despite two lumpy bruises on his head (one at the front, one at the back) and how Madam Pomfrey was muttering words like "concussion" and "head impact" under her breath.

It was with some irony that he further realised that Draco was in the very bed Harry had spent so much time in before he'd returned to the past, using the very same excuses as to why he should be allowed to leave.

Overall, the Draco sitting there was not the same one he was used to; far from being bratty, he was one of the most mature students in he year. He had generally held off insulting Harry or, even more impressively, his friends, and was much more polite to the teachers. His skills matched his new attitude; he was still flying through schoolwork with ease in the few subjects they were in the same class for, and he had heard teachers praise him even in the ones they didn't. And in the Quidditch game today, far from being mediocre, he'd flown like a man possessed, knocking off bludgers, disrupting attacks and generally making a nuisance of himself...

Like a man possessed.

He couldn't be, surely?

But he was so different.

"The possessed can show signs of sudden character change, dubious behaviour, and worsening physical condition." Quirrell's words rang through his head. For Merlin's sake, Draco himself had brought up the subject.

Sudden character change, tick. Dubious behaviour, tick. Worsening physical condition? Sneaking a glance at a topless Malfoy, who had sustained a good many injuries during his fall and roll, Harry had to admit that he looked fine (other than the blue bruises which Pomfrey was busy attending to), but he couldn't have been possessed for very long. His behaviour in Madam Malkin's and on the start of term Hogwarts Express ride had been exactly as Harry had remembered it, any change had only occurred after that first night in Hogwarts castle.

It was as if some foreign spirit had merged with the boy, imparting great knowledge and power while mellowing the worst of his arrogance and prejudice.

Could Voldemort have abandoned Quirrell and decided to use a new host? What damage could even the Dark Lord do through a mere first year? But before the question was even fully formed, memories of his second year, the opening of the Chamber of Secrets and the petrification of several students (and a cat) by an unknowingly possessed Ginny Weasley filled his mind. There was plenty of ill to be done, no matter the chosen vessel.

Last time Voldemort had abandoned Quirrell as a host, the man had died. But he had been badly burned by the fight between himself and Harry, and had been under the Dark Lord's influence for a long time. Maybe, by being released so quickly, the Defence Professor had escaped unharmed.

A first year would certainly attract less attention than a teacher, even one as seemingly inept as Professor Quirrell. Harry doubted the Malfoys would be so ignorant as to let Draco be possessed by the diary in the same way as Ginny had, so that was out. Possession would explain Draco's sudden change of attitude, trying to draw closer to him. It would explain his greater knowledge of magic, and how he was so unchallenged academically. It could also explain why he was so keen to get out of the hospital wing; could any of Madam Pomfrey's charms detect a sign of possession?

"Harry! You're alright!"

Ron's voice broke his train of thought, as he and Hermione ran across the room to greet him.

"'Course I am, just a few bruises." He replied with a smile.

"Well then, come on! The party's started, and everyone's celebrating, and Hermione was awesome, Harry, you should have seen her!"

"Just a minute, gotta do something first."

He walked over to where Malfoy was sitting, passing through the wary glances of the other Slytherins surrounding him.

"Malfoy." The boy looked up. "Great game," Harry continued, sticking his hand out. "Looking forward to next year already."

The blond seemed to consider the outstretched arm for a moment, before cautiously taking it.

"You too, Potter. We'll be back, don't worry yourself."

Hmm. No sudden shaking, burning, screaming, or other effects Harry remembered from his final confrontation with the late Professor Quirrell at the end of his previous first year, when the protection of his mother's dying love had left Voldemort's host unable to sustain physical contact. Whatever had gotten into Draco, it wasn't Voldemort.

"That was good of you, Harry. We sat with Hagrid at the match, he invited us down for tea this Friday." Hermione said when he got back.

Hagrid. Harry was slightly ashamed that they hadn't kept in as close contact as he was used to. Maybe with his more confident outlook from many more years of exposure to the magical world, he hadn't seemed to need the half-giant's company this year. Knowing all the secrets from his past, and the current future, Harry hadn't needed to discuss any suspicious goings-on in the castle with him either. His only defence was that it was a long, long time since he'd last been in the habit of wandering down to Hagrid's cabin by the woods after lessons.

"That's great! He showed me around Diagon Alley on my birthday, it'll be good to catch up."

Walking back from the hospital wing, Hermione told him of her adventure to the staff section, where Professor Snape had been muttering suspiciously before being distracted with her bluebell flames. Harry knew that she must have knocked Quirrell, as last time, who was cursing him, before moving on to Snape, who had been going through the counter-curse. Combined with the Defence teacher's continued stuttering demeanour and use of a turban, this similarity to his previous adventure more or less confirmed that Quirrell was up to his old tricks. But with another player in the game, perhaps it was time to revisit the mystery of the Philosopher's Stone.

After, of course, celebrating this victory long into the night with a raucous Gryffindor common room.


	7. Chapter 7: The Philosopher's Stone

7\. The Philosopher's Stone

It took less than a week before Harry discovered there was a negative to his new status as a Gryffindor hero. He was rather abruptly introduced to this downside just after breakfast on Friday, during their weekly descent to the dungeons.

As he had done in the Defence classes earlier in the week, Harry made sure to sit as far from Draco as possible. He didn't know what was going on with the blond, but he was sure it didn't mean well for him.

" _Settle down_."

The icy tone of Snape's voice cut through the idle chatter, silencing the classroom. Harry gulped. He knew that tone; unfamiliar, as it had been nearly twelve years since he had heard it. Familiar, because he had been subjected to its anger for six long years before that.

At its height, the hatred between himself and Snape had been legendary. He would not soon forget the look of pure loathing on the Head of Slytherin's face, at the end of third year all that time ago, when the man burst into the hospital wing just after Harry and Hermione had freed his mortal enemy, and Harry's own godfather, Sirius Black. All three of them had known exactly what had happened, even if the 'how' of it had escaped Snape. Screaming at Headmaster Dumbledore and the then (and now also current) Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge, Snape had been helpless as the convict Black had escaped and the rewards for his role in the man's capture evaporated, while Harry watched on with a satisfied smile on his face. It was then that, in the mind of the Potions professor, Harry had truly morphed into his father, James Potter, the one man he had hated beyond even Sirius.

From Harry's point of view, he had always heavily disliked Snape, but truly despised him by the end of his sixth year. Snape had turned Hogwarts to the Death Eaters and killed Professor Dumbledore only moments before, and at the death of his mentor Harry had fully given himself over to his rage. Despite later finding out that the entire episode was set up by the old headmaster, at the time he had been compelled to watch the murder play out while petrified under his own invisibility cloak, to watch Snape betray the only man who had ever believed in him. While trying vainly to hunt him down across the grounds of Hogwarts during Snape's escape, Harry didn't think there was ever a man he had more wanted dead; more wanted to kill.

Neither Sirius's flight from Hogwarts nor Dumbledore's death had happened yet, and if Harry had anything to say about it, neither would. Yet even before that, from the day they had met, the two had mixed poorly, with Harry reminding Snape too much of James for the man to remember he had also inherited traits from his mother Lily.

Knowing from Snape's future confessions that he'd been, er, _sweet_ on Harry's mother, Harry had played up the connection upon his return to the past. In his very first Potions lesson, where he'd previously been mocked and condescended, he had answered Snape's questions correctly (proving to himself at least that he had learned something from six previous years of Potions classes), pinned his extra knowledge on wanting to live up to Lily's memory, and generally batted his eyes, the bright green bulbs so similar to those of his mother. By continuing to emphasise the connection over the term, he had earned Snape's favour, and shielded both himself and his fellow Gryffindors from the greater part of Snape's wrath.

Watching his expression at the moment, however, Harry knew that although the connection wasn't shattered, it was very definitely badly strained. This was going to be a Potions lesson of the more traditional variety.

He had tried desperately to remind Snape of his mother. But there was nothing more James-Potter-y, than beating Slytherin at Quidditch.

Harry gulped. Compounding Snape's bad temper, the other Gryffindors had no experience in dealing with it. Having not had to deal with as ruthless a Snape as many of their predecessors, they would have no knowledge of which buttons to avoid pushing in the coming chaos. He had a growing suspicion the lesson would descend into absolute carnage.

As he walked to Hagrid's hut that afternoon, shell-shocked Ron and Hermione in tow, he reflected that he'd been right.

* * *

"- and, and, he must have taken _hundreds_ of points from Gryffindor, and all our potions were _ruined_ , and I think Neville _cried_ -"

The three Gryffindors and Hagrid were gathered round a rickety table, hunched over in their seats, with steaming mugs in front of them. Hagrid, as tall as the three first years put together and twice their combined girth, took up an entire half of the table by himself. Ron was going over their Potions lesson from an hour earlier with helpful input from Harry, while Hermione just sat rigid in her chair, tightly clutching her tea. The atmosphere was heavy, and even though Harry had experienced plenty of 'lessons' like that before, even he had forgotten quite how viscous Snape could be.

"D-d-d'you think he knew I was the one who set him on fire?" Hermione asked in a small voice.

"Yer set Professor Snape on fire?!"

"No, don't worry," Harry cut in, ignoring Hagrid's question for now. "Snape was taking out his anger at the Quidditch result on the nearest Gryffindors he could find. The older years have all had the same thing this week as well."

"When'd yeh set the professor on fire?" Hagrid pressed again.

"At the Quidditch match..."

"She was awesome, Hagrid, she really was. We saw Snape cursing Harry's broom during the game, you know, when his broom was all wonky and Alicia had to take out Malfoy. You put a stop to that, didn't you Hermione? Went over there and set his robes on fire so he couldn't continue his hex." Ron said this rather proudly, making Hermione shrink even further into her seat. "Besides, he couldn't have been too mad with you, he was mostly pissed at Harry!"

"Language, Ron!" exclaimed a scandalised Hermione.

"Well, it's true. Was probably because he couldn't kill him the first time." Ron rebutted, with a nod of agreement from Harry.

"Snape couldn't'a cursed Harry, he's a teacher!"

"He was holding direct eye contact and saying a spell under his breath, I've read all about them." Hermione said sharply. "And after today's lesson I'm not so sure I'd call him a teacher."

Hermione seemed to have gathered herself into a righteous rage. The fact that a Professor could change his behaviour so suddenly because he was sulking at the result of a school Quidditch match did not sit well with her. Harry didn't know if he had the heart to tell her that this was actually what Snape was normally like, and that their year had previously been a special case.

"Nonsense, yer must've been mistaken. Got the full trust o' Professor Dumbledore, Snape has, and Dumbledore's as good a wizard as they come. Snape's not gonna try an' kill the Boy-Who-Lived - sorry Harry -", as the latter flinched at the all too familiar nickname, "- in front'a all o' Hogwarts."

"The broom righted itself as soon as I distracted him!" Hermione half-shouted, half sobbed.

Harry knew that, if nothing had changed from his previous adventures, it was Quirrell who had been cursing him at the match, and Snape was muttering the counter-curse that had held the effects off for so long. When Hermione had set fire to Snape's robes, the disturbance had also stopped Quirrell, which was why the broom's misbehaviour had stopped. However, Harry was feeling none too charitable towards the Potions Professor at the moment, and to start the trail towards the Stone he didn't need to establish _who_ was trying to kill him so much as that _someone_ was. Snape's exoneration was going to have to wait.

"But why would Snape want me dead?"

Hagrid looked aghast. "I told yeh, Snape's got the full confidence o' Professor Dumbledore!"

"So then what does he want even more than Dumbledore's favour?" Harry asked.

"Gold!" Ron jumped in immediately.

"Nonsense!" Hagrid roared.

"But where would you hide gold at Hogwarts? It would have to be off limits to students. Can you imagine what carnage Fred and George would wreak with a chance like that?" Harry asked. Hopefully, with the right prompting, his two friends could solve the mystery that very afternoon.

"As long as they get me loads of Christmas presents with it, I wouldn't mind." Ron grinned.

"The third floor corridor! They could be hiding anything in there." Normally, Hermione wouldn't have been one to start the conspiracy theories without undue amounts of evidence, but apparently this idea seemed about as fanciful as a schoolteacher taking out his bad mood on a bunch of eleven-year-olds.

"Now don't yeh go anywhere near that corridor, y'hear me? Fluffy'll have bits torn out of yeh if yeh do, doesn't like surprises much, the poor thing."

Harry seized the opportunity. "Fluffy? Who's Fluffy?"

Hagrid's face tightened; divided between the secrecy required by his beloved headmaster and the realisation that, if he didn't spill the news, there was a good chance the three first years would try to find out by themselves. Whether for fear of their safety or concern that someone would try to bother Fluffy, he lowered his voice and explained.

"He's a Cerberus."

"A what?!"

"A Cerberus. They're big three headed dogs, Ron." Hermione replied. "How did Hogwarts get one of them, Hagrid? The textbook says they're really rare."

There was a small part of Harry's brain (that sounded most like a nagging, older Hermione) was quite insistent that her younger, corporeal version of herself delving into textbooks of at least OWL material before Christmas of her first year, and in a subject she wasn't even taking, was a bad sign. Giving a silent promise to himself (and his inner Hermione) that he really would try and fix Hermione's book problem soon, Harry promptly ignored it to focus on steering the conversation towards the subject of the Philosopher's Stone.

"That's awesome. What're they used for?"

"They're guard dogs, they are, and damned good ones too. And Dumbledore got 'im from me, I've a load of interestin' creatures somewhere around I can find for yeh."

While Hagrid was busy preening at how great Fluffy was, Hermione pushed at the gap.

"Guard dogs? What's being kept on the third floor that needs a Cerberus to guard it?" Hermione asked.

"There _is_ gold on the third floor corridor!" Ron exclaimed rather optimistically.

"Nonsense!" Hagrid responded. "There's no gold to be had from goin' past Fluffy. Not without a fair bit more work, anyway." He amended under his breath.

"What does that mean?" continued Hermione. "How can you need 'more work'? Either there is gold or there isn't."

Perhaps annoyed by his slips, Hagrid firmed up. "That's enough, you three, and I mean it." He looked them all firmly in the eye. "What's on that corridor is to be kept between Dumbledore and Flamel, y'hear me? Yeh'll stay right away from it."

Perhaps it was the dressing down, or perhaps they both thought that there were now enough clues to work through without upsetting Hagrid further, but neither Harry nor Hermione asked any more questions on Flamel. Instead, they turned to safer topics, and bemoaned Quirrell's incompetence, Binns's boredom, and a hundred other trivial Hogwarts affairs until the three first years were quite late for dinner.

Truthfully, Harry did feel bad that his first visit to Hagrid had been so focussed on getting information out of him. He could only ensure that he visited more often in the future - and if he brought cakes from the kitchens when he did so, he wouldn't even have to stomach Hagrid's attempt at cooking.

* * *

Draco had finally been unleashed from the hospital wing. And he wasn't happy.

It had been a tortuous weekend, with visitors interrupting him every half hour, including Professor Snape, an understanding Slytherin Quidditch team who assured him he'd done what he could (Higgs even admitted he didn't think he'd have done any better against Potter; knowing the result of the equivalent match in his first-first year, Draco agreed with him), and a blushing Alicia Spinnet, who graciously promised that she hadn't meant to hospitalise him and wished him a speedy recovery. The last one had been fun, as Draco had taken her apology with a silent stare, and the girl had gotten redder and redder the longer he glared at her before finally fleeing the room with cheeks as scarlet as her Quidditch robes. As soon as she was gone, he grinned. Let her stew. If he was going to suffer, he wouldn't be the only one.

His frustration with himself over the result of the Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match was somewhat mollified by the knowledge that by the end, he'd been flying with a serious concussion and was doing well to stay on his broom, never mind try to catch the snitch. However, this also meant that Madam Pomfrey felt justified in keeping him under wraps for far longer than necessary, annoying him further, and he had only escaped on Monday morning by promising to return for daily check-ups for the next week. The last of those was now over, and having returned from her domain for the last time, Draco replayed the Friday's events in his head.

It was a relief to return to normality in Potions lessons. No longer spending half his time wondering why everyone was being so damned nice to each other, he could happily whittle away the morning watching the Gryffindors wilt under his spectacularly fearsome Head of House, with occasional explosions marking the unnecessary additions to their potions courtesy of his Slytherin housemates. The sight did wonders for his bad mood, and by the time they left the dungeon he was almost happy again. Almost, but not quite.

He had an afternoon off, as Crabbe and Goyle were in detention until late evening. In his absence over the previous weekend, they had forgotten they had a Charms essay due in for Monday morning. The two boys had been surprisingly shaken by his absence from the Slytherin dorms, and Draco could only think they were lost without anyone to follow around like lost puppies for the two days.

Crabbe and Goyle burst into the common room just as Draco was finishing up with the week's homework, which he'd only started that afternoon due to all the hospital visits he'd been forced to endure over the past days. Both were out of breath and panting heavily, but Draco took little notice. With their fitness, that could mean anything from having run the full way through the castle to taking a brisk walk down the last two corridors. Still, they were making a ruckus, so it was best to make sure they were all right before shutting them up as quickly as possible.

"What's wrong with you two?" Draco asked rather shortly. It was, after all, supposed to be his night off.

"Dog!" said Crabbe.

"Dogs!" replied Goyle.

"Pardon?" Draco asked again.

Crabbe turned to Goyle.

"Dog!"

Goyle turned to Crabbe.

"Dogs!"

This was hopeless. Up until now the two goons had, at least, been making progress in their conversational abilities, but tonight it seemed that they were back to square one again.

"Dog!"

"Dogs!"

"Dog!"

"Dogs!"

"Enough!" Draco shouted, drawing the attention of those in the common room that weren't already staring at the noise from Crabbe and Goyle. Thankfully, the common room was fairly quiet, as those people who wanted an early night had already turned in and the students staying up later weren't yet back from the library or other, more secretive, parts of the castle.

"Now, tell me, calmly, what exactly has you both so worked up this evening."

"Dog!" blurted Crabbe, almost at the same time as -

"Dogs!" went Goyle.

"Yes, I managed to get that bit. But where did you come across a dog and why has it gotten you both so riled up?"

Now that he mentioned it, Crabbe and Goyle were shivering quite acutely at the moment, and their faces appeared bleached white. Maybe they actually had come across something genuinely scary, in which case Draco should probably lay off the scolding.

"D-d-do -"

"Ok!" interrupted Draco, before the charade could begin again. "Maybe I should be more specific. Did you make it to your detention in time?"

Nodding. That was good.

"And who was your detention with?"

"Filch," said Goyle. This was better, he was getting actual information out of them now.

"And what did he have you doing for your detention?"

"Cleaning out the trophy room," replied Crabbe, "without magic."

Ouch. "And when you were finished, where did you go?"

The two boys looked at each other and, if it was possible, paled even further. "We got lost on our way back, 'cos it was dark and all, and we ended up..." Goyle tailed off.

"... On the third floor corridor." Crabbe finished with an audible gulp.

Ah. That explained why the two were so shaken. Rule-breaking without direction (preferably from Draco) would terrify the two automatons, and doubtless they had feared punishment for being out of bounds. They probably saw Mrs. Norris and mistaken the pet for a dog. "And on the third floor corridor, is that where you saw the 'dog'?"

"There was this locked door, so I opened it, and -"

"Woah," Draco interrupted Crabbe, "How did you go through a locked door?"

Crabbe stared back with an odd expression on his face and Draco felt an odd sense of turnabout as Crabbe looked at him as if he was missing something obvious; it was the very same expression Draco used so many times when trying to get a particularly simple point across.

"I unlocked it. With magic."

"You know the unlocking charm?" Crabbe, using magic proportionally and intelligently? How had that happened?

"Took a few goes." Goyle added.

Crabbe's expression turned smug. "Yeah, but I got it in the end. You said we should practice the spells in that textbook."

Draco had indeed strongly urged them to become competent in the first year spells from _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade One_ , but he hadn't actually expected them to do it. "When did you get the time to do that?"

This time Goyle picked up the story. "When you were at Quidditch practice. We had our homework done, we did, 'cos you did it with us, so we went on extra."

Draco's opinion of his companions grew up to its highest level in, well... ever. He hadn't considered that, by helping the two through their homework while he did his (teaching them was boring, tedious, but what else was he supposed to do with his time? At least this way it looked to others that he was actually trying and not being _too_ naturally perfect at everything), they would have much more spare time than their previous counterparts had. If he had thought of it, he probably would have imagined them spending the time imitating particularly passive gargoyles. The idea of them using the moments he wasn't with them - which in the run-up to the Quidditch match had been quite a bit - to do something useful was... astonishing, really.

Of course, they then used this knowledge to break into corridors out of bounds and where trespassing students had been promised painful deaths, so clearly they had a bit to go in the intelligence department. Still, at least they were being interesting.

"Okay, so you came across the forbidden corridor and entered a locked, out of bounds, potentially dangerous room. What did you then come across?" Draco asked, his voice a strange mixture of pride and irritation.

"A dog."

"Dogs!"

"Dog!"

"Dogs!"

"Okay!" Draco said again. "Was it one dog, or more than one dog? Crabbe?"

"One dog."

"And Goyle?"

"Three dogs."

Really, how hard was it to determine how many dogs you were facing?

"How many heads did you see?"

"Three." The two answered together.

"But there was only one dog?" Draco asked of Crabbe.

"Yep. Only one tail wagging."

"Goyle?"

"Was focusing on the heads, myself. The teeth." muttered Goyle with a shudder.

"So the dog had three heads, and one tail. Are you sure?" So, there was a Cerberus at Hogwarts, and there was only one reason Dumbledore would suffer to have one of those in the castle. Rumours of years long past, of the months to come, suddenly solidified in Draco's mind as the pieces fell together.

Cautious, tentative nodding from Crabbe and Goyle. Draco took a sharp intake of breath.

A guard dog, to babysit - if the rumours that had been whispered amongst the Death Eater ranks had any truth to them - a Philosopher's Stone.

If the rumours were true, there was a Philosopher's Stone up for grabs in the castle. Hundreds of wizarding children had heard the legend growing up; the tale of a small, ruby-like stone that offered everything one would ever need; infinite gold, and infinite life. Neither were truly infinite, of course; selling large quantities of gold would needlessly devalue the metal and ruin your source of income, along with much of the wider wizarding economy. The stone also did nothing to protect against unnatural deaths; accidents both unfortunate and arranged. It was a manageable problem, if one made the right precautions, but if you were to live forever, eventually someone would manage to encourage you along into the afterlife. It was simple mathematics.

But these were mere technicalities; a wizard with the power of the stone would be more comfortable and prosperous than he could possibly imagine.

Draco could foresee three possibilities; if Lord Voldemort gained possession of the stone, carnage would ensue. A Dark Lord with a newly forged body and funds to burn into a prolonged campaign did not bear thinking about. It was a world where he would be favoured, but without the need for Malfoy gold he would be no more so than a hundred other pureblood families, and Draco had already knew all too well what suffering befell those who lost the Dark Lord's goodwill.

If Potter found it, or was rescued by Dumbledore in the process thereof, things would continue the way they were. His future knowledge would still be of use, as it minimised divergence from the Hogwarts he had known, but he would always be playing the tightrope act, trying to placate what would undoubtedly be an increasingly suspicious headmaster while avoiding the pressure to be branded as one of the Dark Lord's cattle.

However, should Draco claim it, then things became... interesting. Promising. Where the Dark Lord would fund a war, Draco could fund peace; instead of a brutal dictator, the wizarding world would find themselves a magnanimous leader; and where Voldemort would use the elixir of life to build for himself a new body...

Draco could use it to cure the Greengrass curse.

It was not strictly a Greengrass curse, for it had been passed down from her mother's side. Yet nevertheless, over a century ago, one of Astoria's ancestors had been struck by a blood malediction curse, which had promptly waited, dormant in the family, for several generations and would reveal itself in the youngest of the line before Astoria had left Hogwarts. As far as they could tell - and they included the Malfoys, the Greengrasses, their cousins, relations, and the best hired mediwizards to be had in Western Europe - it was nothing but sheer bad luck that Astoria was the one to suffer, and it had been no action of her own which awakened the curse.

They had fled a future where the Malfoy name was shorn of all respect and influence, but what would that have mattered, were they to have had each other? But the curse was far beyond the capabilities of St. Mungo's, and private research was expensive in money and contacts that his family no longer had. Instead, the couple were doomed to a short time together, punctuated by ill health and bereft of children who, with the effects of childbirth on Astoria's delicate constitution, would have made that time shorter still. And now a cure was here, at Hogwarts, and all Draco had to do was grasp it.

He had a lifetime to live again, and he could solve all their problems within the first year. If the rumours were true.

"Malfoy?" Crabbe asked slowly.

He had evidently zoned out, lost in his own thoughts, and Crabbe and Goyle were staring at him with confusion on their faces.

"Very well done," he said quickly, covering his lapse of attention as best he could, "both of you. You've done yourselves proud tonight." Two beaming smiles stopped Draco, slightly stunned by the impact of his small words. "Continue practicing the spells, practice until we get back after Christmas, and if I think you're good enough, I'll show you some special tricks next term."

The Crabbes and Goyles were easily self-interested enough in themselves and their families to have found a way around the trace, so they should have no problems there. If he was going to have unthinking muscle backing him up, it might as well be as competent as he could make it.

As for himself, he had time enough to think about his approach before he attempted anything rash. Time enough to acquire a few items that would prove most useful in the years to come.

* * *

A/N: There won't be much from Cursed Child in here, however as we know very little else about Astoria I felt I couldn't leave the blood curse out. In general this will be canon compliant with books 1-7, but not necessarily anything beyond that.

Please leave a review, even just "Good job!" or "Could do better!", they do help hugely with motivation. And thank you for reading! Next up, answers to a question I really expected to be asked about by now...


	8. Chapter 8: A Feast and an Epiphany

A/N: This was supposed to be your Christmas bonus chapter, but then I messed up the scheduling (the last two chapters were one in the plan), so we'll have to be continental about this. It was originally Christmas Day on Christmas Day, but I think this is just as appropriate, no?

8\. A Feast and an Epiphany

It was a cold Christmas morning. Harry was stood in the knee-high snow as more flakes swirled gently down from the dark clouds far above the castle to softly coat the castle in a fresh dusting of white. The frozen lake in front of him lay before the forest, the snow-laden trees just visible through the weather, the tranquil scene in complete contrast to the hot fury raging through his thoughts.

Never, in all the time since he had returned to the shadows of his past, had he ever felt so small, so helpless against the task and fates in front of him, so pathetically _eleven_ , as he did standing in that meagre snowdrift which somehow reached halfway up his legs.

Why hadn't he noticed before? How hadn't he noticed before? What could have caused such a monumental shift right underneath his own nose? And how, oh how, had what should have been such a simple problem morph into such a disaster?

Clad only in his pyjamas, cloak, and fresh green Weasley jumper, and with hands near blue from cold, he turned back towards the castle, and started following the path through the snow he had trudged out a mere half hour before. He could still fix this. With a situation like his, time was always on his side; even if he did nothing, he should have two years to find a solution to the predicament that now threatened everything. He wasn't sure how, but he could fix this. Even if he should not have had the problem to begin with. He had to.

He turned his mind back to earlier that morning, when he and Ron had broken their habitual holiday lie ins to devour the presents that had magically appeared at the ends of their beds during the night. The night when he'd had no idea of how his plan was going to change forever.

* * *

Earlier that morning, a much merrier Harry had woken up to the sound of wrapping paper getting torn to shreds on the bed to his left and grinned. Christmas. A chance to give out presents, eat as much as he could (and then some more), and hopefully collect a few priceless treasures he had been eagerly awaiting ever since he'd returned from the time of plague and death.

"You're awake!" Ron beamed at him from the other bed.

How he had noticed when he'd been so concentrated in opening his own presents was beyond Harry, but he grinned back and replied, "Course I am! It's Christmas!"

Ron snorted. "Yeah! 'Course you are! Not like you wouldn't budge when I tried to wake you earlier. Well, I didn't try too hard, you know, got distracted..." He gestured to the half open pile on his own bed, and the odd balls of wrapping paper that he'd thrown at his roommate - in an ultimately vain attempt to wake him up - lying around Harry's, and had the grace to look faintly embarrassed at having started on his own.

Laughing back, Harry just said, "I'd bet you did. At least we can both be distracted now!"

He sat up and reached down to his haul waiting patiently opposite him. Quickly tearing through his pile, he unearthed amongst other things a large selection of wizarding confectionary from Ron, a familiar looking flute from Hagrid, and his old-new Molly Weasley jumper which he eagerly pulled on over his oversized pyjamas. He briefly wondered if he was being silly, getting excited over Christmas presents that, from his point of view, he'd already received years before. Even the fifty pence piece from the Dursleys was identical to the gift he remembered. An impromptu grin dismissed the feeling; he'd grown very fond of his first Christmas presents - his first ever presents - and was delighted to have them back, and in much better condition than when her last seen them. It was like welcoming an old friend back to a fireplace you'd both spent winter days talking around many years before.

One such 'friend' he would definitely be finding useful was wrapped in unassuming packaging at the bottom of his pile of presents. Harry turned it around until he found the attached note written in familiar swirling handwriting.

 _Dear Harry,_

 _Your father left this in my possession before he died, it is time it was passed on to you. Use it wisely._

 _Merry Christmas._

Just as before, Dumbledore hadn't signed the note, but Harry was still thanking the old wizard as he draped the Potter heirloom around his shoulder and felt it's soft fabric ruffle against his skin. Turning to a mirror, he watched his head float steadily in the air with a wide smile on its face. With all the uses right and wrong he'd put it through over the years, from smuggling himself into the Restricted Section of the library, or down to Hogsmeade before Sirius had signed his permission slip, to taking a bath with the clue to the second task of the Triwizard Tournament in his fourth year, his invisibility cloak was as much of a part of Hogwarts as any of the grounds or ramparts. He was home.

"Woah, an invisibility cloak! They're really rare!"

Harry turned to bask in Ron's startled expression.

"Who gave you that?"

"The note with it wasn't signed." Harry answered honestly. "It was my dad's."

"You got a note from your dad?!"

"The cloak, Ron, the cloak was my dad's. There aren't any clues on who left me the note."

"Oh." A pause. "That's pretty awesome. Can I try?"

"Sure." Harry's smile grew, and the two boys watched in the mirror as they stuck various heads, arms, and legs out of the cloak to float in mid-air while the rest of themselves were wrapped up in it. Delighted at their antics, they were only interrupted by a slight hooting from behind them.

"More presents?" Harry asked, looking towards the window to see if there was an owl yet to make a delivery.

"Yeah!" Ron agreed, but instead of turning to the empty window, he pulled one final, bell shaped parcel out of a mountain of torn wrapping paper that was emitting the offending noise.

A slight frown began to mar Harry's features as Ron unrolled the present more delicately than any he had received so far, and his heart began to race as the redhead revealed a medium sized cage. Sitting inside, perched on a wooden rod hanging from the top of the cage, was a tiny owl with grey feathers and a white face.

The owl looked straight at Harry gave another soft hoot, and despite the bird being the one in the cage, it was Harry who suddenly felt trapped.

He knew the bird.

It was Pigwidgeon.

"Awesome! I always wanted an owl!"

Harry barely heard his roommate's burst of joy, stuck as he was in his own world, frozen in the dormitory as his thoughts swirled in his head.

"Aren't you just wonderful?" Ron asked, in a soft, cooing voice he would later vehemently deny ever making, as he scooped the tiny bird out of its cage and into his arms, oblivious to his friend's shock.

A sinking feeling in Harry's gut that he'd never noticed before opened up as the full implications of the Christmas gift struck him.

Harry, Ron and Hermione, the original Ron and Hermione (although Harry did feel bad about referring to them as such), had originally chosen his 'time of arrival' as the start of his fourth year at Hogwarts. As a result of the unknown influence which had caused him to miss that time slot so badly, Harry had had to redo a lot of things that he'd really rather not have had to go through again, as they'd taken a large slice of luck to successfully complete the first time around, and had gone well enough that they saw no purpose to doing them all over. As a result of the misjudgment, he'd had to get to know his best friends again, rather than reveal himself to people he'd known and loved for three years. He'd had to win back his spot on the Quidditch team and fight a troll. And he was most certainly not looking forward to the chaos the Heir of Slytherin and his chosen vessel would release on the school next year.

But during those first three years, he'd also seen his godfather break out of prison, and chased out the quite literal rat that had betrayed his parents in a way that would help the traitor resurrect Voldemort under circumstances that would later prove quite useful. A rat that had, as of several months ago, quite utterly vanished.

There had been no spell on the train in a vain attempt to turn the rat yellow, no sneaking bits of food back from the kitchens for a dormitory pet, and no grumbling from Ron about how useless he was. It was as if Scabbers had never been.

The worst part was that Harry immediately knew how he'd missed it. He had prepared for his temporal voyage by planning out his immediate moves for a time when Pettigrew was out of reach, and as such the animagus hadn't featured in any of his ideas. And then, once he found out that he was, in fact, just about to start his first year, he had forgotten all about the problems Pettigrew posed. Harry had gone through a lifetime without worrying about his best friend's familiar; without the visual prompt of Scabbers scurrying around his best friend's lap, he hadn't been able to remember to start again.

"Look, Harry! My own owl!" Ron had apparently noticed that Harry was off in his own head at that moment and was looking displeased with his lack of enthusiasm.

"That's great, Ron. Really great." Really, really, really, terrible. Even to himself, he couldn't find it in him to sound convincing in his support for his friend. A ringing had started in his ears, high pitched and wailing, and he could feel his hands start to shake.

Scabbers was still out there. Pettigrew was still out there. His parents' betrayer, their murderer just a sure as Voldemort himself, was somewhere in the world, anywhere in the world, unrecognisable, unreachable, and to the best of his knowledge, free. A heavy rolling in his stomach added to his earlier ills.

"You ok, Harry?" Ron asked him, finally noticing the shaking of Harry's hands.

"Not really." Harry replied meekly, hoping that the boy would put his lukewarm celebration of Pigwidgeon's arrival down to him not feeling very well. "I think I just need to go outside for a bit. Get some air."

"Oh - uh, okay." The redhead looked at the snow falling outside. "Are you alright to go on your own? I want to show my owl around, and he doesn't look like he'd last five minutes in that."

"That's fine. I'll be back soon." At least he could get some time to think over what this meant, and he understood Ron's reticence to go out to the cold. On any other day, he wouldn't be keen on going outside into that weather either.

"Don't be long." Ron agreed, his attention already turning back to the feathered friend that had unknowingly caused Harry so much shock that Christmas morning.

So it was that Harry walked slowly down the steps from the dormitory, hurried from the common room, and by time he reached the great doors of the castle, had broken into a run towards the snow.

* * *

It did not take long for Harry to realise that he hadn't taken the time to change out of his pyjamas, and as such had only his jumper and cloak to provide any real warmth in what was a bitterly cold Scottish December. He found he didn't care. He had more pressing concerns than whether he was warm or not, and deep within, some part of him started on convincing himself that he deserved the feeling for all his inattentiveness.

Pettigrew was free.

The man who had killed his parents, imprisoned his godfather, betrayed his...

His godfather.

Another heaving wave coiled in his stomach, as the biting winter wind continued to cut at his skin. The false guilt from his ignorance of the rat's whereabouts became very, very, real as he remembered - he finally remembered - that his godfather would be lying in an Azkaban while he thought, had been lying in a cell ever since he returned from that wretched country that was the future, and that however cold Harry felt in the snow and the wind and the shade that the long shadow of Hogwarts left across the parts of the grounds not covered in cloud, Sirius would be having it a thousand times worse on a near abandoned rock dressed in rags, hopeless for years, and surrounded by Dementors.

How could he mess around - plunder the kitchens, relax with his friends, play Quidditch - while his godfather was rotting in jail, thought of as a traitor by everyone he knew, imprisoned for a crime he'd rather die than commit?

The two of them had had such precious little time together; barely two years from learning of the man's innocence to losing him in the Department of Mysteries -

Yet another shock, this time a jolt that shook his spine. Sirius had fallen through the Veil, just as Harry had to return to the past. Was it possible that he too had returned?

As quickly as the joy filled him, at the thought of having his Sirius back, it departed again, ruthlessly crushed by a wave of reason every bit as cold as the snow around him. It had taken them months, with a full team of researchers and the help of Hermione herself, to sort out the runes inscribed across the arch (granted, the Unspeakables probably made slightly more headway than Hermione had, given that they'd been so practiced in deciphering the arcane, but Harry still found himself trusting more in his old friend for yet another academic miracle than in the faceless personas that worked feverishly alongside her).

If Sirius's trip hadn't been guided, he would have been cast into nothingness. The chances of reaching a timeframe where you no longer existed was all but certain; in that, at least, the Veil of Death was aptly named. Harry swallowed, feeling the goosebumps forming on his throat tickle as he did so. That was why he came back, after all. To save people. This time, he swore, they would have far longer than two short years together.

Of course, he had to get him out of Azkaban first. The sensible thing, the reasonable thing, the thing Harry hated himself for by merely suggesting it, was to simply let time take its course. Objectively, twelve years on that godforsaken rock wouldn't be much different from the eleven he'd already spent there, especially with the benefit of Padfoot's animagus form. Any sooner could prove impossible; he knew that from bitter experience when, after third year, they hadn't been able to clear Sirius's name despite the firepower of both himself and Dumbledore behind the cause, long before the two of them had been sullied by the allegations that the Daily Prophet came to love to hurl at them. The chances of him, an eleven-year-old first year, overturning the immovable interests that kept his godfather locked away were practically zero. Even if he could, the grinding cogs of Ministry bureaucracy would all but guarantee that the process would take longer than the year and a half before he escaped on his own.

On the other hand, Sirius had been prompted to escape when he received a second hand newspaper, on a random visit by the Minister, to see a photo taken because the Weasleys had won a lottery and were taking the opportunity to visit Egypt. Notwithstanding the fact that, as of a few hours ago, he no longer had a rat to be in that photo and prompt the bid for freedom, there were an incredibly large amount of variables in there to go wrong. Harry and Hermione had discussed (or rather Harry had been lectured on, but he knew the woman's intentions were good) that the more a certain event relied on chance to pull off, the less likely it would be to happen again. The likelihood of all those events playing out the same way was minuscule. But, Harry mused, if the escape bid was motivated by a more general desire to protect Harry from harm, that would be more easily replicated. If his previous attempt at a childhood was anything to go by, the chances for him to endanger himself would be much more frequent.

Another gust of freezing air ran through him, and he turned to the frozen lake to his front, castigating himself one last time for not noticing Wormtail's absence sooner, before preparing to head back to the castle and the Christmas feast within.

* * *

It was a warm, glowing fireplace that greeted Draco when he followed his parents out of the dining room and into a small living room off to one side of the large hall. For all their wealth and formality, Christmas Day itself at the Malfoy household remained very much a family affair.

Waking late and to a large breakfast, they would hold off on general gift opening until after the traditional dinner. Instead, and to pacify a young Draco who had never been the most patient of children, they exchanged small, personal presents between the three of them over bacon, eggs and sausages at breakfast. Draco had received an intricate new snitch with the words "Slytherin's youngest seeker" engraved on it, and an enchanted stand that would keep it still should he have it on display. It was more than slightly ironic, Draco thought, and he was grinning widely at the simplicity of the gift. While it was supposed to be small, he would be the first to admit he had been spoilt rotten as a child and normally even the first of the offerings would be suitably grandiose. Hopefully, this meant that the best was yet to come. He'd thanked his parents, in case they were testing his gratitude, and kept his metaphorical fingers tightly crossed.

One long family stroll later, just as traditional in the Malfoy house, and they were ready for lunch.

One would hardly have thought there were only three of them, given how much food lay on the struggling table. It was a truly staggering dinner, which Draco found that - strangely - he had missed.

It hadn't occurred to him when he'd left Hogwarts at the end of the first term that this was the first time he was seeing his parents since he had returned from the future. He had been with them since he'd come home, but they were busy people, and this was probably the only day it would just be the three of them together before he returned to school. Although his parents had still been alive when he had mastered the runes of the veil, there had always been a shame that hung around the family, a dark cloud that had settled after the war against Voldemort and never truly lifted. Now, it was as if they had never been so ostracised, that they hadn't tried to subjugate and destroy the rest of the wizarding world. Draco was aware of his parents' role in the first war, but that didn't seem to matter to the three of them, sat around goose and turkey and ham. That, he reflected, was probably part of the problem, but on a personal level... it was nice.

Finally, after many hours soaking up compliments about his behaviour and manners (not difficult, when compared to the eleven-year-old self his parents had last known), Draco was entering the room with the smaller, cosier tree and the presents that - hopefully - lay within. He knew he normally got whatever he wanted; for his twelfth through fifteenth Christmases in the last timeline the tree had been swamped with impeccably wrapped extravagances, but he'd never asked for anything quite as ambitious as this before.

He tried to hide his smile as he sat on the floor opposite the tree and saw what awaited him; or rather, what wasn't awaiting him.

Being as well looked after as he was, it was far from unusual for him to receive mound after mound of large presents from parents who had quite literally all the money they would ever need. Such piles of packages were absent this year, however, and although there were many from other family and friends, none were wrapped in quite the style favoured by his mother, except for one small, square bundle reverently placed just out of the way of the others. Draco watched with an unusual excitement as his father reached over and scooped it up gently.

"It required no small amount of searching, son, to acquire this."

Or rather, it was only by calling in several favours that his father could buy what was almost certainly within his mother's intricate wrapping paper at a price merely equal to the average wizard's salary. It was still a handsome reward for the time it took whichever master created the gift to do so, but far below the nigh-extortionate amount someone without such connections would find themselves having to pay.

He slowly reached up from his position on the floor, nervous despite himself. He had known that his parents would see his request in one of two ways; as him growing up, and thinking seriously about his future and the tools he needed to get there, or as an increasingly childish act of a spoilt brat, coming up with inventive new ways to waste ever larger numbers of the family galleons. All that was left for him to do was to prove to them that it was the former. It shouldn't be too difficult; he was, after all, twenty-six.

But even at twenty-six he was still much younger than his father, and those piercing eyes had seen off far sterner opponents than he.

"I'll do my best to use it wisely. You won't hear tales of misuse or mischief from me, I promise." He replied, raising his eyes to meet the stare.

"I'm sure we won't." His father said back. An implied "Or else" hung in the air before his expression softened into a smile. "But open it up, you don't even know what it is yet!"

Draco finally stopped his ever more futile attempts at keeping a straight face, and a beam shone across his cheeks. He looked to his mother, who was eagerly awaiting his reaction, before turning back to the soft item in his hands and carefully taking the gift out from its parcel. If possible, the expression on his face grew still further.

"Thank you. It's... it's perfect. Thank you."

He looked at the cloth in his hand, a golden trim lining the shimmering black of the material, with the letters DM monogrammed into the nape of the neck at the back.

"It's charmed, of course. It will resist the weather, spilt drinks, even minor jinxes and some charms, although we know you will take exceedingly good care of it anyway." His mothers voice broke through his awed silence. It really was a thing of beauty.

"Thank you." Draco said again, truly, heartfelt, with a feeling which he knew could never have been replicated by his true eleven year old self if he'd been given all the galleons in the world, before turning to hug both his parents in turn.

"Well?" His father asked, in an impatient tone that almost made Draco suspect he wouldn't be under too much pressure to only use it 'appropriately'. "Aren't you going to try it on?"

He turned to the large mirror mounted on the wall opposite where they were sitting and swung the black cloak over his shoulders. He felt the featherlight material settle around his shoulders and watched his reflection eagerly stare back at him -

\- as he disappeared from sight.


	9. Chapter 9: Misceaneous Mischiefs

9\. Miscellaneous Mischiefs

"Had a good Christmas, Hermione?"

Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting round the rickety wooden table in the kitchens - which was slowly becoming their table - with a slightly shy looking Neville, scoffing into their favourite cakes while exchanging Christmas stories with each other. It was the first Friday back after the holidays, and with no lessons the next day, the first year Gryffindors were making full use of their free time. Dean and Seamus were busy pestering house elves about which of the sweets were the most unhealthy, so they could stock up on them for later, while Lavender and the Patil twins were gossiping at the end of one of the four long tables which spanned the room in symmetry with those in the Great Hall directly above them. Padma was, so far, the first non-Gryffindor to join them, but was fitting in well, while Harry got the feeling Neville had just come along with everyone else and was too scared to go back on his own now curfew had passed.

Harry was feeling slightly guilty about Neville; knowing the strong, confident man he would become, the shaking, fearful child in front of him appeared quite pathetic. He knew he hadn't been as good a friend as he could have be, and put encouraging Neville on his list of things he ought to be keeping an eye on. Unfortunately, that list was now getting rather long.

Safeguard the Stone. Watch Quirrell for suspicious activity. Encourage Ron to do more - or at least some - work. Encourage Hermione to do less work. Watch Draco for suspicious activity. Watch Pettigrew for any activity. Try to free his godfather as soon as possible. And he should probably also be working on trying to find the ring-failed jay, the cure for the infection that had laid low his wife and a good deal of the rest of the wizarding world, the reason he was back here in the first place.

"Quite good, Ron; it was nice to see my parents again, and take a break from everything going on at Hogwarts. I got a bit of reading done too." Hermione replied.

Harry looked her over and was relieved to see that it did seem that she'd had a relaxing Christmas. He had no doubt that 'a bit of reading' summed up to what most people would consider a small library, but a good deal of the stress that had built up on her face before the holidays had subsided. She looked calm but determined, just as she always had when she was at her best.

"Your book was very informative, thank you Harry."

Harry smiled back. He had thought hard about the present he'd given her for Christmas; a book seemed a bit stereotypical, even if it was, after all, Hermione, but had eventually settled on _Magical Creatures and their Civilisations_ by an Irish wizard named Owen Golfer. He'd felt sorry for his part in the term she'd had, and felt it was the best way to soothe her; Hermione always did take advice better when it came from a book.

In retrospect, Hermione had had a particularly rough first term. She had the benefit of an early birthday, so she'd had an entire year between her eleventh birthday visit from whichever teacher had gone to explain things to her and her start at Hogwarts. However, magic wouldn't have been present in her everyday life - not like they were all steeped in it at school - so she probably hadn't been as used to the idea as she'd have thought. Things had improved; the castle was grand and comforting, she'd made friends, but she'd had to adjust as well, not just to the idea of magic, but also to the idea that she was no longer automatically at the top of every class. Both the wizards competing with her for the spot came from famous wizarding backgrounds and seemed to be putting in rather little academic effort, which wouldn't have helped to dissipate any muggleborn stigma she might have overheard.

Then, she would have arrived at Halloween, and her realisations of what a house elf was. All the teachers she had learned from and respected, and all the friends she'd made, were all apparently fine with what could easily be considered slave labour. Though she had been talked out of any drastic action, Harry wasn't sure how much peace she had made with the idea. Hence, the book: Golfer explained much about elves and their stories and histories, and much better than he or even Dumbledore could have put it.

The other half of her Halloween story had very nearly seen her and her friends brutally killed by a marauding troll. The very next week, one of those friends had nearly been killed again during a school sports match, during which she'd set fire to the teacher that they thought had been the attempted murderer. That another of her year had left the pitch dazed and heavily concussed barely registered as a footnote, which wouldn't have been terribly consoling either. To round off the term, the teacher she'd set on fire had turned on eight eleven-year-olds in his class like an avenging banshee, before she learned there was the potential of a large pile of gold sitting in a school corridor, guarded by a vicious three-headed dog, all of which the faculty was, again, apparently fine with. Put together, these events could probably be considered rather traumatic.

Really, it was a slight miracle that she'd come back at all, and it was a true testament to her determination and loyalty to her first true friends that she looked so composed going into a new term. Harry himself was terrified, and he'd had a good deal longer to come to terms with Hogwarts than she had. In all honesty, it was probably going to get worse before it got better.

"No problem," was all he could get out, "I'm glad you found it useful."

That, of course, led to Hermione telling them all about Golfer's facts and opinions. While not the most riveting tabletop conversation, it no doubt boosted Hermione's confidence that she knew something he didn't. Ron would hopefully learn something, and Neville was humming along politely at the appropriate intervals, so he'd feel involved too, which would help with many of Harry's problems for the term.

Luckily, many of Harry's other tasks overlapped; keeping an eye on the Stone and Quirrell would be one and the same, and Pettigrew was only a threat if he joined up with Voldemort. Since the Dark Lord was on his watch-list anyway, that meant Harry didn't need to go looking specifically for the rat.

He wanted to, oh, how he wanted to. But he didn't need to, and this year, the Stone took priority. Wormtail would have to wait.

The only oddballs were about Draco, and Sirius. At the moment, Harry had no idea what to do about either of them, so he didn't.

Come midnight, he still had no plans, but was nevertheless feeling much better; Padma and the eight Gryffindors snuck back to their respective common rooms, safe in the knowledge that any patrolling teachers or prefects were in another part of the castle. Harry had promised some of the proceeds of their adventure to bribe the Weasley twins into causing a suitable distraction at the required time. While he was quite sure Fred and George were capable of fetching their own snacks from the kitchens, they took it as their sworn duty to help with 'corrupting' the first years and aid them with whatever troublemaking they could think up. They were therefore being perfectly cooperative as long as they were well fed at the end of it, which suited Harry just fine.

Turning over in his bed that night, he let out a long sigh. He had much to do.

* * *

That same Friday night, Draco was putting his new cloak through full readiness testing. At least, that was what he was telling himself. The uninformed observer, if he could see Draco through the cloak, might describe him as 'sneaking around the Forbidden Forest after dark'. However, those that knew better would notice that he was walking calmly and confidently, and so was most definitely not 'sneaking', and was only going after dark so he wouldn't be missed in the castle.

After all, those who were invisible had no need to sneak.

The latter half of the winter holidays had been spent preparing a secluded part of the manor grounds so that it could host 'special visitors' from time to time. It was the perfect site, surrounded by forest, partially underground, and best of all, utterly ignored by the rest of the family. It had been created two hundred years ago on the wishes of a many-times great aunt, and no-one in the family had needed use of it since. Draco himself had only found it after many hours walking around, searching for such a spot. His thinking, interrupted by Quidditch schedules and tutoring sessions during the previous term, had arrived at a sudden realisation over Christmas that created a new project for him to get to grips with in the New Year.

His long-term plan hinged on hiding himself away from both sides for the duration of the war, doing his best to be forgotten about while Dumbledore and his merry band of fools kindly saved magical Britain from a lifetime of terror under the Dark Lord. The Philosopher's Stone didn't change the plan; if he could get it, everything would run so much smoother, but he still had no intention on getting involved in any wars he didn't have to. However, the Malfoy name was unlikely to be forgotten, and if there were rumours of his ruby prize, the attraction would be tenfold. One man, even one family, had no chance of defying either wizard forever, and his dreams of peaceful retirement would lie shattered in the dirt at his feet.

In short, Draco needed guards. Guards for him, guards for his family, and hopefully, guards for the Stone.

It was equally obvious that human guards would not do. For a start, the more families or the mightier wizards that disappeared with him, the less likely they were to be left alone. In addition, witches and wizards tended to be slightly less absolute in their loyalties than Draco would like; he and his own father had straddled enough of both sides in the last war to know that. While there were methods of enforcing such compliance, he hesitated to use them; the Dark Mark was not the only stain on his soul that had been removed on his return to the past, and he rather liked his conscience unspoilt now he had it in one piece again.

Upon reaching the forest, he broke into a jog. He wanted to test his footing underfoot, and his mobility under his cloak. The first shadows of the trees were ideal; far enough away so that he wouldn't be seen from the castle if he slipped up, but not too far into the forest where he might be interrupted by something dangerous.

It was blissful.

His movement was totally unimpeded, the lower reaches of the cloak seeming to mould themselves onto his legs as he ran. He was not silent, and there were many creatures in the forest with good enough hearing to notice him even if he thought he was, but the magic on the cloak was strong enough that the sounds of twigs snapping and leaves crunching underfoot were muffled, and beyond any human senses unless the eavesdropper was standing right next to him. The seams did not catch on loose branches, and the hood did not buffet at his head. He was invisible, and very nearly undetectable too.

His father hadn't been exaggerating when he had told him solemnly, that Christmas evening, that it was the best invisibility cloak money could buy. Rumour had it that the Potters had one whose charms were eternal, and passed it down from father to son across the generations. Draco's cloak would not last forever, but with careful management it could easily manage at least a half-century of use, and when you were eleven (or even twenty-six), was there really that much of a difference between the two?

The silence of the forest broke as his ears adapted to the quiet. Chirping, whistling, snorting. Little signs that the little boy was not alone in the woods. He returned to his thinking.

So if he needed to garrison whatever hideaway he chose for himself, and if witches and wizards would not do, that left the realm of magical creatures. Not anything too intelligent; that would muddy the ethical waters too much. The cool wind - for it seemed between his cloaks (invisibility and otherwise) he would not get properly cold, despite the Highland chill - slithered up his left sleeve and over his forearm; over the bare skin that six months ago he had not thought he would see again. His body was clean, his soul was whole, and while there would be many who would classify his actions as 'morally dubious' he had no intent on letting them go far enough that this new purity was risked. Besides, anything that could think too deeply for itself could act for itself, and Draco would not chance betrayal.

While working on his den back at the manor, he had thought up other requirements too. A short breeding cycle, for one: anything that was dangerous on its own (a dragon, had been the first of his ideas) would be too large to go unnoticed, and he would only be able to smuggle a few creatures into the grounds - or out of whatever grounds he borrowed them from. Anything else would have to be raised, and he only had a few short years before the war began in earnest. Assuming he ended up with many of these sentinels, they would need to naturally form a strong family unit. That way, Draco could control the leaders and have the rest of the colony follow suit. And, of course, his guards would need to be intimidating enough to be worth fearing.

So Draco had decided upon exploring the forest, searching for suitable candidates.

Vampires, while strong and easy enough to hide, were far too independent, and would be nigh impossible to catch in the first place. Any other creature that turned on him might kill him, but the fate of those bitten by the undead lords would be far, far worse than a simple death. Werewolves might have done nicely, except they only took monstrous form once a month, leaving Draco with no guards and several humans to entertain twenty-six days out of twenty-seven. A Cerberus was also promising - it was, after all, Dumbledore's guard of choice for the Philosopher's Stone - but finding a breeding pair would be horrendously difficult, and _that_ thought gave Draco an image he tried to shake out of his head as quickly as possible.

The easiest way to make a decision was probably going to be to check what he could find.

And if it was small enough to subdue and sneak off Hogwarts grounds, so much the better.

* * *

Harry decided that solving mysteries at Hogwarts was much easier when you already knew the answers.

He was sitting with Ron and Hermione in front of the Gryffindor fireplace. After a delayed brunch, courtesy of their kitchen misadventures late last night, the three of them had decided to solve the mystery of the third floor corridor that afternoon. Unbeknownst to the other two, who despite their optimism probably thought of it more as a long-term project, Harry did indeed expect to get most of the investigative work done before dinner. On the table in front of them sat a book on Flamel; a well placed chocolate frog card had been enough to get a name and achievement (Nicolas Flamel, of the Twelve Uses of Dragons' Blood) and from there it was a simple matter of the three of them lifting the book from the library after hours one night using the cover of Harry's new invisibility cloak. It hadn't even been in the restricted section, so they neither needed to go together nor to sneak in at all, but Harry had decided it was probably good to get a practice in with the cloak as soon as possible.

"Nicolas Flamel... lives in Devon, with his with his wife, Perenelle, and their great-great-great grandchildren..."

"Great-great-great grandchildren? How old is he?!" Ron asked Hermione.

"Six hundred and sixty-five." Hermione answered. Ron paled and made a 'huuuu' sound.

"You think you should have lead with that?" said Harry. Hermione shrugged, grinning. "How did he manage that?"

"A Philosopher's Stone."

"What's a - NOT NOW, PIG!"

A small, fluffy missile had dive-bombed the table they were sitting at, sending fragments of parchment flying.

"Ruddy owl - yes, you" - for the owl had looked up at him with adoring eyes on his rebuke - "don't do that! What do you want? More biscuits? Here, take some and shoo." Ron said, handing a couple of biscuits to a grateful Pigwidgeon, who chirped happily and fluttered over to the ledge above the fireplace.

"How did you come up with the name Pig in the first place?" Hermione asked.

Ron scowled at Harry. "I didn't. Harry called him Pigwidgeon after dinner on Christmas, and now the damn thing won't listen to anything else."

Harry had indeed accidentally referred to the owl as Pigwidgeon, and the owl seemed just as disinclined as its predecessor to be renamed when Ron didn't like it. Of course, Harry didn't know whether this was the very same owl, as he'd never paid particular attention to the old one, but so far they looked and acted similarly enough that the name had slipped out by mistake. The chances seemed minute, impossible even, but Harry had spent long enough as an Auror in his previous life to have given up on believing in coincidences. The implications of fate and destiny that went with the happenstance were, for now, best ignored.

Hermione glanced at Harry in a curious way, and he found himself at a loss as to what to say. He could hardly explain that it looked like a Pigwidgeon he already knew. He wondered what Ginny's excuse had been, all those years ago, and his heart gave a little flutter. Ginny, the wife he had left behind, dead on a hospital bed, and for whom all this being done for. He shook his head clear.

"It kind of suits him, right?" he managed to splutter out.

The three looked at Pig, who looked less like a pig than possibly any other pet in existence, before Ron and Hermione turned back to Harry.

"So what's a Philosopher's Stone, Hermione?" he asked nervously.

As a distraction, this was a fairly good one, and Hermione returned to her impromptu lecture with gusto.

By the time it came to return to the Great Hall they knew quite a bit, and between Harry's carefully directed questions and Hermione's encyclopaedic knowledge they had guessed a good deal more. There were two main abilities of the Philosopher's Stone; creation of the Elixir of Life, and the ability to transmute base metals into gold. Both abilities were naturally highly desirable for anyone who wanted to steal it and so did nothing to narrow the list of suspects down. Everything fit, from the small package that Hagrid had taken out of the vault in Gringott's on the day he took Harry to Diagon Alley to his comments about Flamel and creating gold from whatever was on the third floor corridor. Unfortunately, they had no evidence that the vault was later broken in to (that edition of the Daily Prophet was long since lost), nor that there was anything yet killing unicorns for their blood in the forest. This made it hard for Harry to pin the blame on Voldemort without sounding unduly alarmist.

And so, at the end of their hypothesising, Snape was still the main culprit, but Harry was not overly bothered. His friends still knew that the Stone was there and had to be protected, and that they should take care around the castle. Indeed, the less they knew about Voldemort, the safer they were likely to be from him - he would be trying to avoid undue attention at all costs.

Maybe, just maybe, things a were starting to go according to plan again.

* * *

In the early hours of Monday morning, for the third night in a row, Draco was out of bed. He was not, this time, in the Forbidden Forest, but instead on the forbidden corridor on the third floor. It was a good thing he was invisible; if the Sorting Hat got wind of how many so-called 'forbidden' places he ended up, he'd find himself resorted into Gryffindor by sunrise.

He had been told before Christmas what awaited him there, but he had to see. He had to know. Not because he didn't trust Crabbe and Goyle - their reactions had been easy enough to read - but because a part of him knew that all of this was far too ridiculous to be seen through any eyes other than his own.

He was also sensible enough to wait for the required resources before embarking on any missions that could get him killed. But now, invisibility cloak on and wand in hand, he was ready.

He crept through the deserted corridors, hearing every creak of every floorboard and every muttering of every ghost.

Eventually, Draco reached the forbidden door. He turned the handle to check if it was locked - it was - and then whispered,

"Alohamora!"

Sure enough, the lock clicked open and the door, at his gentle push, swung open. He stepped inside.

As soon as he did so, the snarling started.

Crabbe and Goyle were right; it was a Cerberus, and a big one at that. It was easily twice as tall as Draco - not that that particular observation meant much given his current form - and many times as wide, with three fearsome heads that sniffed at the air around him before turning down to glare at him. Heads with jaws that would have no problem swallowing him whole, and enough teeth that they wouldn't need to.

Draco gulped. Evidently, the creature's nose was not so weak as to be fooled by invisibility cloaks, and for the first time that night, he felt scared. He was confident enough that he could take down a Cerberus in a fair fight; he was, after all, a wizard fully trained if not yet fully grown. Doing so without alerting any of the staff to his presence would, however, be impossible. Besides that, they were confined together in a small room that in no shape or form encouraged a 'fair fight' and very much encouraged a swift and violent evisceration at close quarters. Worse still, while his mind was comfortable in the beast's presence, his body was evidently not, and he felt with shame his eleven-year-old hands shaking as he stepped back from the monster. Eager to be away, he took in the small room one last time, and barrelled back out the door. Hastily re-locking it, he took off back the way he had come, and quickened his pace until he was over halfway back to the safety of the common room.

He turned the room over in his mind. Small, abandoned. Well out of the path of any normal student. Containing one large dog with three large heads - and one, very small, but very definite, trapdoor. He shook off the last of his fear, and a savage grin returned to his face.

The smile threatened to split his skull. He had found the stone.

He pulled the blankets over himself as he snuggled under the bed. As exciting as midnight adventures were, he did need sleep. Especially with the plan for the next weekend; he was still to convince Snape to get him the potion he needed.

Not that it would be particularly difficult, he smirked again, still smiling.


	10. Chapter 10: The Long Night

10\. The Long Night

Draco sighed. His forest wanderings had been put on hold when the Quidditch season restarted, and he suddenly found himself training for the upcoming Hufflepuff match anytime he found himself with spare time - and quite a bit of time that wasn't spare but Flint used for practice anyway. As a result, he was far too tired to explore the grounds at night, especially since he'd need to be well-rested to subdue any particularly dangerous creatures he might come across when he did so.

He was not sighing at other projects being delayed, however. He was sighing because he'd spent five hours on a broom, was exhausted, and hadn't eaten dinner yet, despite it being only a quarter of an hour before curfew. At least this term he didn't have to fear being caught by Filch after hours, and would be spared the mad race back to the common room with the others. It was times like these he was very thankful for his new invisibility cloak.

"Now remember, no training tomorrow or Friday, and be here half an hour before the match on Saturday. And make sure you get plenty of sleep."

At Flint's words, delivered with a wolfish grin, the rest of the team laughed hesitantly along with him. Their faces were torn between apprehension and anticipation; of all the nutty Quidditch captains to have graced the walls of Hogwarts, surely none had come up with anything quite as crazy as this.

To their general surprise, Flint had been understanding about the Gryffindor defeat from last term, and commended them on the performances while bemoaning their misfortune. Heads remained attached to shoulders, the dressing room remained devoid of bloody intestines, and all was well. Unfortunately, Flint decided that they needed to make a statement to underline that it was only luck keeping Gryffindor top of the table. Unfortunate for Hufflepuff, that was.

Over the term, the Slytherin team had flown partially blindfolded, confunded, and while being hit with drowsiness charms. From time to time, Flint tried all three at once. The schedule had grown more and more frantic as the match approached, and Draco thought that a good part of why everyone was looking forward to Saturday so much was just so they could be done with the damn thing.

Of course, the other reason - the more proper reason - was that having invested so much energy in the match, the team were rather interested in whether they could pull Flint's ideas off in an actual game.

Looking at the plan, Draco had to admit that it was a good one. It would boost confidence back up, unnerve the Gryffindor team, and provide a good challenge for the Slytherins to pull off in what would otherwise be a straightforward game. Beyond all of that, it would ensure that whatever else students took from this season, in the end all that would be remembered was a most Slytherin victory; ambitious, cunning, and not wholly within the spirit of the rules.

"See you on Saturday." Flint smirked.

* * *

On the Friday morning, Harry entered the Potions classroom and immediately looked for Draco's distinctive pale-blond hair. It had become his habit upon arriving to classes that he shared with the Slytherins to sit as far away from his nemesis as he could, to make any attempt to attack him as difficult as possible.

Today, though, there was a problem.

Today, he couldn't find him.

He thought back to breakfast - was Draco simply running late? - but Harry himself had nearly slept in that morning and there were few students left in the Great Hall by the time he was finished breakfast. Indeed, other than Draco's empty spot and his own awaiting chair, all the seats in the classroom were filled.

"If you'd sit down, Mr. Potter, so we could begin." Snape sneered, causing Slytherin snorts of laughter. His lip twitched, as if he was about to take points from Gryffindor, but he said no more. Harry wasn't technically late, but that had never stopped Snape before. This year, however, Harry was at least a competent potioneer, so although Snape had been much colder to him ever since the Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch match, they had not yet descended back into open hostility.

Harry took a chance.

"Where's Draco, sir?"

Muffled laughter continued to roll through the Slytherin ranks. Apparently, the question amused them.

"Mr. Malfoy has provided me with an adequate excuse for his absence. Now settle down," Harry wanted to ask for more detail, but Snape obviously noticed this, for he continued, "or I will take points for nosiness, Mr. Potter. Do you understand me?"

Harry held the man's gaze for a few moments longer, but he recognised a lost cause when he saw one. A quick "Yessir!" and he dropped down in his usual seat between Ron and Hermione. He was on the lookout for suspicious behaviour, and this certainly counted as suspicious.

Snape said little else that lesson, other than ordering them to turn to page two hundred and seventy one, paragraph eight, and follow the instructions on the board for a potion that was apparently used to distinguish real wood from any conjured counterparts. Harry couldn't see why anyone would want to know if a log was natural or not, but was already on his last warning for this lesson, so kept his head down and got on with the work.

"Maybe he's ill," Hermione muttered under her breath, scribbling down notes as she did so. "After all, Flint's been driving the Sltytherin Quidditch team very hard in the last two weeks."

While that was true, somehow Harry didn't think it adequately explained his rival's absence. The Slytherin-Hufflepuff match was the next day, so if anything, Draco would be doing everything he could not to be ill. Sometimes Hermione's logic just didn't take into consideration how obsessed people could get over Quidditch. Although, if Draco did miss the match, Flint wouldn't be too happy with him, and then Harry might be rid of him for good, on the Quidditch pitch at least.

Or, a pessimistic part of his brain whispered, Draco might buy everyone new Nimbus brooms to make up for it.

"I've hardly seen him at dinner at all this week." Hermione concluded.

That much was right, and Harry had noticed how Crabbe and Goyle had been collecting extra portions of food every night to bring back to their common room. Ordinarily, he might have thought they were simply pigging out, if not for the fact that several other students in different years were doing the same thing. Wood's spies had informed him that the Slytherin team were barely making it back from training in time for curfew, never mind dinner, and so the players had their friends bring them back meals for later instead. Wood had passed this message onto them with a glazed look in his eyes, and the twins thought he was simply jealous he hadn't come up with the idea first. Harry had grimaced at that, knowing he and the girls would have to negotiate hard to spare themselves a similar fate before their match against Ravenclaw.

On the other hand, Draco hadn't been at dinner yesterday either, and that evening the Slytherin team had been given a night off. Maybe he really was ill, maybe it was just a coincidence.

Maybe, just maybe, the blond enigma wasn't up to something after all.

* * *

"Malfoy's definitely up to something!" Ron argued, thumping his spare hand against the table for added effect. The other was curled around a cup of steaming tea. "He's not been at meals, and he's not in the hospital wing either!"

The three Gryffindors were once again sat in Hagrid's hut, their visit safely timed so that, other than a brief stop at the hospital wing to check for errant Slytherins, they'd come straight down after lunch. Therefore able to politely turn down Hagrid's offer of rock cakes, they accepted his much-more-stomachable tea and returned to hypothesising the logic (or otherwise) behind any of the castle's unusual activities.

"Maybe he just needed a lie down," Hermione said sceptically, "I know I'd prefer to recover in my dormitory than in the Hospital Wing."

"Yeah, but Madam Pomfrey said she hadn't seen him at all, didn't she?" asked Ron, looking to Harry for support. "He'd have to have gone to her for something, especially if it was bad enough to get him out of Snape's class."

Harry, who'd spent most of the year heartily encouraging his friends to be suspicious around Draco, was hardly going to stop Ron now. But some things didn't add up.

"Snape loves Malfoy, he'd let him off for anything. And he's the Potions teacher too, he's probably got loads of medical potions he could use."

A few more debates on this point ("Slytherins hardly ever go to the Hospital Wing." - "That's because they're the ones who put people there!") and they grudgingly decided to wait and see. If Draco didn't make the Quidditch match the next day, something was definitely going wrong; Snape cared about the sport (or rather the cup at stake for winning it) too much to let any small excuse slide, and they would know there was something extraordinary afoot. If he was back, well, they'd watch him like hawks to see if he relapsed or not.

But Draco still hadn't reappeared by dinner, and despite their promises to the contrary, Harry, Ron and Hermione were still arguing over exactly what his absence meant. Hermione had tried asking Daphne Greengrass and Tracy Davis - two of the more civil first year Slytherins - but all she received in response was an outburst of giggling and an apology that they couldn't be giving away 'House secrets'.

Ron was all for investigating immediately (even if he wasn't quite sure how they were meant to go about it), while Hermione was more cautious (insisting on sticking to be original plan of waiting to the match tomorrow - Harry and Ron had eventually convinced her that no self respecting Quidditch player would dare miss such an occasion). After all, she argued, regardless of whether Malfoy himself was planning trouble, the entirety of Slytherin seemed to know what was going on, and they were unlikely to be so blasé about it if it's something genuinely nefarious.

Harry was just about coming around to Hermione's point of view when they unexpectedly had their problem solved for them.

"So you're wondering about the whereabouts of a Mr. Malfoy, we hear?"

"Well good luck looking for him here. You're unlikely to find him."

Fred and George sat down either side of their brother, who in turn was opposite Harry and Hermione.

"How do you know?" Ron asked sceptically.

"Ron, ickle Ronnikins," Fred started (over the last few months, Harry had gotten much better at telling the twins apart again), "how little your faith in us!"

"Surely, you of all people," George continued, "know not to question our almighty omniscience."

Harry grinned. "After all, with their experience _marauding_ around the castle, I'd expect them to have a few tricks up their sleeves."

If the twins were surprised at his rather deliberate wording, they hid it well, and addressed the three first years as if imparting some great wisdom.

"We, benevolent as we are, are glad to tell you that Mr. Malfoy is currently in his dormitory, along with the rest of the Quidditch team."

"They're having one last meeting before the match?" The anguish on Ron's face was palpable as he was torn between his two great loves, trying vainly to decide whether to commend them on their dedication or decry them for missing dinner.

George chuckled. "No, they're all in their own rooms. 'Far as we can tell, they're sleeping."

"How do you know?" asked Hermione, as,

"At dinnertime?" a startled Ron blurted out.

"As far as we know." Fred confirmed. "And we know quite a bit. As to the how," here, he winked at Hermione, "well, that's not for tiny first years to worry their pretty little heads over."

"But if you're inclined to worry," George added, "then we'll also let you know that Malfoy hasn't moved from his bed since after lessons yesterday. Poor boy hasn't been sleeping well."

That was interesting.

"Be such a shame if he was to miss tomorrow's match." Fred finished sweetly, in a way that made clear he wouldn't mind at all.

"Why hasn't he been sleeping?"

The real question Harry wanted to ask was where Draco had been during the night. The twins had access to the Marauder's Map - a wonderful piece of magical parchment, made by Harry's father and his friends (and Pettigrew, a nasty little voice whispered in his mind's ear) under the nicknames Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. The map not only spelled out the corridors and secrets of Hogwarts castle, often including any secret passwords needed along the way, but also marked the position of all people, students, professors and others, that were on the grounds. Having been confiscated from its manufacturers in their final year, the Weasley twins had in turn pinched it from the caretaker Filch in their first, and promptly used it for its intended purpose of making as much mischief as manageable for the next two and a half years.

All of this, however, Harry knew from his knowledge in the future, and as such was unable to reveal to the Weasley twins. He was in no doubts that they realised there was something odd about him; he knew where the kitchens were immediately, led the first year Gryffindors there regularly and after curfew, and generally seemed to have a much better grasp of the castle than any innocent little first year ought to have. However, he was content that their curiosity would hold their silence for a few more years, at which point he could reveal himself as Prongs's son and they could assume he had inherited the troublemaker's knowledge from some spare piece of passed-down parchment.

Until then, however, he could only ask precise enough questions to be able to assume the rest from what he already knew.

"The poor Malfoy boy seems to have a bad bout of insomnia." Fred answered.

"Either that, or he's uncommonly fond of sleepwalking." George said.

"Where was he going?" Harry asked. If he didn't yet have the map himself, he wasn't above asking those who did have it for additional information.

"Out of the castle, for the most part. He goes right out the doors and off our... well, out of range of our ears. But then, a while back, the most curious thing happened, didn't it George?"

"It did indeed, Fred. A couple of weeks ago, our Malfoy had a bad experience, and hasn't been wandering about since. We were wondering if he was attacked, weren't we Fred?"

"I still reckon he was, George."

A dramatic pause hung in the air, and it became clear that the twins were going to offer no further information unless one of the three of first years humoured them. Ron broke first.

"Who attacked him?"

The twins looked at each other, gave themselves menacing smiles, and turned back to their audience.

"He was attacked..."

"... By a Fluffy!"

They said this with the panache of a big reveal, but it was still obvious that they expected further questioning. Quite what their answers would be, Harry didn't know (while he wouldn't put it past them to go investigating any part of the castle that was explicitly forbidden, they tended to respect Dumbledore's firmer rules in odd penance for breaking so many of his minor ones). He was unsure how deep their knowledge of the true story behind the third floor corridor went, and wasn't planning to find out. It didn't matter, however, because whatever the Fred and George didn't know of Fluffy, the three first years did, having been told most of it by Hagrid in an attempt to dissuade them from looking into it themselves.

"He's after the stone!"

"How did he survive Fluffy?"

"Maybe that's why he's not here! He's injured!"

"Oh, don't be silly, Ron. He'd need Madam Pomfrey if he was attacked by a Cerberus, and she said she hasn't seen him at all yet!"

"Maybe Snape healed him with Dark Magic!"

A snort.

"Okay, okay, maybe he escaped Fluffy using Dark Magic!"

Another snort. "Come on Ron, he's eleven. I know he's one of the best in our year but if Harry can't get past the Cerberus how do you expect him to?"

"Dark Magic!" Ron snorted back, as if it were obvious.

"El-ev-en."

"Dark Mag-ic."

As the conversation between Ron and Hermione continued in this vein, Harry remained silent, holding eye contact with the twins.

"Was Draco headed towards the Forbidden Forest, by any chance?" he asked.

Fred looked at him. "Why yes, he was. How did you know that?"

Suspicion and interest flickered in their eyes, and Harry began to think he'd rocked them more than he'd suspected with his 'marauder' comment.

"Lucky guess. A prong in the dark." he answered with a smile.

A guess, yes, but at that minute Harry was feeling anything but lucky.

Draco had suddenly bumped himself up Harry's list of priorities. His continued absence notwithstanding, there were pieces of a very unfortunate puzzle lying around Hogwarts.

Harry had already been baffled by Draco's newfound genius, his improvement in Quidditch skill, and his welcome if mystifying transformation into a reasonably well-mannered person. The Draco he had grown up with had been none of these, and in Harry's book that was enough cause for concern.

But now, that concern was increasing into fear. Harry had been getting headaches in Defence Against the Dark Arts classes, caused by his scar's reaction to the proximity of Voldemort. As he hadn't been getting any in Potions lessons (at least of the scar-focussed variety; there were more than enough noxious fumes in the dungeon to give even the healthiest students migraines), his reaction was to Professor Quirrell, not Draco. Draco also didn't wear any unusual headgear, and didn't flinch at Harry's touch (of which he had only their handshake after their Quidditch game to refer to), all of which made him an unlikely possessee for Voldemort to be sneaking around as.

On the other hand, something was quite clearly up, if Draco was visiting the Forbidden Forest and the forbidden corridor. Such risks would be considered far too 'Gryffindor' for the boy Harry remembered, who usually contented himself to sitting back and letting whatever disaster was unfolding at the school happen, safe in the knowledge that he wasn't the main target. Both places were obvious targets for Voldemort; the forbidden corridor could get him close to the Philosopher's Stone, and the Forbidden Forest...

Unicorns.

Harry remembered, barely, of detentions with Hagrid in the old timeline. They'd been examining the forest for dead unicorns, in a bid to find out what had been killing them. Unicorn blood provided life-extending qualities, but would leave the drinker forever cursed. Only someone truly desperate, truly vile, or truly insane, would choose immortality in such a way.

Voldemort fitted all three very nicely, and with the Philosopher's Stone so close, it would only have to be a stop-gap, until he could reach the Elixir of Life to grant himself much greater powers. Hence, he had survived on unicorn blood for most of the year, uncaring as to the consequences. Harry didn't know what Draco was doing; was he fetching the blood for Quirrell, drinking it himself, or conspiring on some other evil scheme? There were many reasons to enter the forest at night, but none of them were good.

"Harry?"

Hermione had spoken, but the three Weasley brothers also watched him in rapt attention.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah, I just zoned out for a little while." he replied casually.

George snorted, while Fred muttered "You bet you did." under his breath in a way that gave Harry no delusions that he wasn't meant to hear it.

"Maybe we should get a early night," Harry said, eager to prove he wasn't going crazy, "we'll need all our strength to support Hufflepuff tomorrow."

Scoffs of "I'll say!" and "They're doomed!" rang out, and the company trudged back to the common room, talking with much hope and no expectation on the merits of Hufflepuff Quidditch.

* * *

Draco woke late, and met with the rest of the Slytherin Quidditch team just inside the exit from their common room to make their way up to breakfast as a unit. The walk as a unit helped their teamwork, or so Filch claimed, as well as providing a handy deterrent to any saboteurs thinking of hexing them (a vulnerable first-year seeker, for example). On the way into the Great Hall, they passed the four great hourglasses filled with the precious stones that kept track of the house points. Curiously, Hufflepuff currently held a slight lead. Draco smirked as Higgins, walking beside him, muttered that they better not be hoping for any additional points from Quidditch. Moving inside and sitting together at the Slytherin table, they proceeded to tuck their way through several servings of breakfast while other students slowly trickled in and out.

He could feel their eyes on him, on all seven of them. They had, after all, vanished yesterday afternoon, and in his case the day before that. Now, they were eating enough to make up for missing last night's dinner, and to the others around them who wondered how they'd get off the ground, it seemed that they were eating enough to cover all their meals for the entire weekend as well.

No doubt it seemed like some great mystery to them all. No matter, they would be put right soon enough. Draco smirked.

Nothing stirred the soul like a good plan coming together.

At the end of breakfast, half an hour before the match, they exited the Great Hall as a group, made their way across the Hogwarts grounds, and gathered in the changing room for one last, rousing, speech.

"Everyone got a good night's sleep?" asked Flint, with a glint in his eye.

Nods and smirks all round.

"Everyone know what to do?"

More nods and smirks.

"Then let's crush 'em!"

A final, bellowed "SLYTHERIN!" from the seven of them and they were on their way.

* * *

 _A/N: Some updates might be delayed, as while I've got chapters written, they're not necessarily the ones which come next chronologically. If there is a delay, I'll post sooner when we reach prewritten content, so everything should average out if you bear with me._

 _If you spot any references, cameos, or have specific predictions for the future, I'll award points to a house of your choice if you're right should you point it out in a review..._

 _Thanks for reading!_


	11. Chapter 11: The Next Chapter

11\. Next Chapter

Sitting at the Gryffindor table for breakfast, Harry caught sight of Hermione entering the hall and nudged Ron beside him. Waving her over, they both continued to rush food into their mouths, causing Hermione to growl threateningly at them as she arrived. Harry almost laughed; by the time she left Hogwarts, the very same growl would have evolved into a weapon that could make even a Death Eater shiver with fear, but Hermione was a long way off that yet. In comparison, her current version was almost cute.

The dagger-like stare still did the trick though, and Harry slowed down his shovelling slightly (just enough to focus her ire on Ron instead) as Hermione gave them one last huff of disapproval before moving on to - in the boys' opinion at least - much more important matters.

"I suppose you two are planning to spend all day watching the Quidditch, then?" she asked, disapproval evident in her voice.

"As long as it lasts." Ron chirped.

"We're really too invested now, it would be more unproductive not to go. We'd spend all day worrying about what happened." Harry grinned. Invested in the match, invested in the mystery - although given recent events, the latter seemed like a bit of a let-down.

"When are you going down to the pitch?" Hermione said.

The two boys looked at each other, before turning back to her sheepishly.

"Actually..." Ron began, his hesitation evident. When it became obvious he had no plans on continuing, Harry finished the thought.

Hermione groaned. "I thought Parvati said she'd seen you earlier, don't tell me you've actually -"

"... We've already been. Just back for a bite to eat before we head back down." Harry completed.

Because the mystery was over, and Harry felt cheated. The Hufflepuff-Slytherin match was indeed taking place that day, but the reason the Slytherins had been acting so weird over the past week was now apparent.

It was Sunday.

The day before (the Saturday, as days before Sunday tended to be), from the start of the match, the Gryffindors had cheered on Hufflepuff while watching Draco for suspicious activity as they'd promised each other. They had spotted this 'suspicious activity' immediately; despite being the nominal seeker, to Harry's skilled eyes, it was obvious from the first minute of the match that Draco had no intention of catching the snitch.

This was an unusual but not unheard of strategy; occasionally a team with a sterling chaser group but outmatched seeker would have the latter focus on denying their opposite number instead of catching the snitch themselves, while the chasers did their best to rack up a 160 point lead as quickly as possible. The oddity was that, as Harry had witnessed during the Slytherin-Gryffindor match, Draco was a good seeker, well above the skill level of his Hufflepuff counterpart, and while the Slytherin chaser line was stronger than their yellow and black cloaked opposition, it wasn't by much, and in any case it was rare indeed that school level players could build the required lead with the necessary haste.

Maybe Flint had lost confidence in Draco's skills after the first round, but Harry couldn't see how. As much as he disliked the man personally, Flint had a keen enough eye for Quidditch to see that that wasn't the case, and if he was really so concerned, he'd have dropped Draco altogether and moved Higgs back from chaser.

Despite all this, Draco had done - was doing - his job well, and the Hufflepuff seeker (not Diggory - a flinch as Harry remembered that name - as Harry didn't recognise him, but given he'd spent his own first year match against Hufflepuff unconscious in the hospital wing, the lack of familiarity wasn't surprising) was left more frustrated as the game wore on. The Slytherin chasers had built a reasonable, but far from dominant, lead, and the day dragged towards the afternoon.

Enraptured by a spell as only Quidditch could weave, the collective Hogwarts student population had ignored their pangs of hunger as lunchtime came and went. A few of the more organised pupils brought out sausages and pastries they had smuggled out of breakfast. Distracted by their friendly bickering over what, exactly, Draco was doing up there, and how it all fitted into his evil masterplan, the three of them failed to realise that the concentration of picnic-munchers amongst the Slytherin stands were unusually high.

Naturally, Hermione was the first of them to snap out of the daze, and returned to her homework once it was evident that nothing indeed was happening (the snitch hadn't been spotted in half an hour, and the seekers were reduced to disrupting each other's chaser plays, Malfoy always watching the Hufflepuff like a hawk whenever he tried to break off and resume the search). Two hours later, she'd returned. Ostensibly, it was to nag her fellow first year Gryffindors - all of whom were still watching, even if Neville was half asleep - into attempting some schoolwork while they waited for some excitement, but she also brought with her a large basket of bread rolls from the house-elves, which were eagerly set upon by the ravenous spectators. Harry grinned at the thought of Hermione - _Hermione!_ \- breaking into the kitchens - and a _school rule!_ \- for them on her own initiative, and thought his influence might be finally paying off.

Cheers erupted from the Slytherin section of the grounds shortly before dinner as the team in green finally broke into a hundred and sixty point lead. Even the capture of the golden snitch, however unlikely that seemed, wouldn't save Hufflepuff now. Harry expected to see Draco switch tactics now the game was won, but his pale haired antagonist stuck to his original strategy of shadowing the opposition.

The game dragged on.

With the result in the bag, a good deal of the school who went off for dinner failed to return. Those less Quidditch obsessed, those students behind on work, and those who simply couldn't watch any longer as the Slytherin lead stretched ever onwards, stayed back in the castle. Harry noted that, despite the sudden shortage of fifth and seventh years with official exams at the end of the year, his own fifth-year captain Wood was still watching eagerly, having somehow procured a notebook over dinner, as were the majority of Slytherins (gloating over the magnitude of the victory) and Hufflepuffs (loyal to the last, bless their badgery little souls).

All of which was mildly interesting if, as Harry and Ron were, you were fascinated by the game and scarfed down dinner as quickly as possible to make it back out to rejoin the diminished crowd. But none of it explained why the Slytherin team had been acting so oddly in the run-up.

Until, with the scores at 640-330, darkness fell, and the game showed no signs of abating.

By then, the stands were mostly deserted, and only the hardiest braved the night's chill to stay and watch a match they could hardly see. The Hufflepuff players were tired, hungry, and roundly demoralised, whereas the Slytherin ones were well rested, well fed, and clearly energised. Gradually, those few remaining spectators realised why the Slytherin team had had an early night on Friday, why they had such large breakfasts as to make do for the weekend's meals. They weren't planning to stop.

Eventually, dreary-eyed and weary even as they did their best to focus on the Quidditch, Harry and Ron decided that since they were about to fall asleep anyway, it would be better to be in their own beds when they did so. The grounds were dark, and the stands were almost empty. Madam Hooch had been replaced by Professor McGonagall as the referee, Lee Jordan was snoring loudly (the sound-enhancing spell he had performed on himself earlier meant these were audible across most of the castle), and there were only a dozen or so particularly fanatical fans left, including one rather devoted girlfriend, two lumps sitting huddled in the Slytherin section that Harry could just about make out as Crabbe and Goyle, and a frantic Oliver Wood filling out his sixth roll of parchment on the two teams' plays. Harry could also make out Professors Sprout and Snape left in their respective sections, exhorting their houses to greater feats, while Dumbledore and Flitwick were making conversation in a neutral stand. Whether they were discussing lighting, calling the game done, or simply placing bets on the match, Harry could not tell.

Then, scant hours later, the two Gryffindors were up at the crack of dawn and headed back to the pitch to get in a few hours spectating before breakfast.

There, they found chaos. Harry couldn't quite catch the score, but it was evident that the Slytherins had arrived at a thousand points overnight while the Hufflepuffs were still on several hundred. In a way, it made sense. In the professional game, teams had reserves to use for occasions such as these, and would happily replace team members for weeks on end in rotating patterns should the need arise. Hogwarts Houses were often less blessed; the Gryffindor team hadn't been able to replace him all those years ago when he'd been in the hospital following his first encounter with the Philosopher's Stone, and that was on several days' notice. Hufflepuff wouldn't have realised what was happening until far too late, and had no prepared replacements; whatever they could scramble would be far below the usual level even for a house match.

Slytherin, on the other hand, had the reserve Chaser that was left over from when Draco bumped Higgs, the team's original seeker, sideways, and knowing what they had planned Flint had been rolling substitutions across the night to keep their midfield players, if not well rested, certainly in better condition than their yellow-robed counterparts.

Which brought them back to the Great Hall. Once they'd shaken off an increasingly persistent Hermione ("You really should be doing your homework you know, it'll be really bad for you if you fall behind!") at breakfast, Harry and Ron settled down next to a rather somber looking Hagrid, who was clutching two large buckets of water. One, he was dunking his head in at irregular intervals, and the other he was taking large slurps from.

"You okay, Hagrid?" Harry asked.

Hagrid only groaned in reply.

"Hagrid?" Ron persisted.

He got a groan, too, before Hagrid turned to look at them and said, "Yeh, I'll be alrigh'. Jus', yer know, keep it down a bi' fer me, if yer don't mind."

Harry stared, before doing his best to stifle a laugh. Hagrid, half-giant, eater-of-rock-cakes, who he had seen (before he'd returned to the past in the form of an innocent first-year) down litres of ale as if they were shots, was hungover.

Ron didn't seem to cop this, but they respected their friend's wishes anyway, and sat in silence as Slytherin continued to tear apart the hapless Hufflepuffs until midday came.

Having proven their point (and no doubt getting rather tired themselves; it was one thing to keep up on sleep, and quite another to stay airborne for so long on aching muscles), Draco rounded the Slytherin score off at a neat 2,500 just before lunchtime with a catch entirely unopposed by the Hufflepuff seeker, who was gently dozing by the side of the pitch. With exhausted arms, they'd held the Hufflepuffs to a mere 500, ensuring the largest Hogwarts Quidditch victory anyone could remember, and sending several Ravenclaws scuttling to the library to check if anyone had ever matched the achievement. The cheer from the green section caused Hagrid to wince, but he bade them a cheery enough goodbye anyway, and invited them down (with Hermione) for tea that evening.

Waddling back to the Great Hall just in time for lunch, Harry mentioned they'd spent almost their entire weekend either eating or watching Quidditch, to which Ron replied it had been two perfect days.

* * *

Showered, changed, and back in the Slytherin common room, Draco reflected on another positive aspect of dragging Quidditch games on far longer than they were supposed to be. By finishing the game in the early afternoon, the team had inadvertently opened up an opportunity for the resulting party to last most of the day.

"There he is!" Flint cried, the captain having beaten him back to the common room, "The kid who lasted all night!"

The crowded room cheered their hearty approval, and Draco let out a wide smile. While the chasers and keeper had alternated round, and they'd even found a substitute beater to use, they couldn't spare an extra seeker without pulling Higgs in, which would have compromised their chaser line. Fortified by a sleeping potion that Professor Snape had slipped him, along with his Head of House's permission to be absent from the Friday morning Potions lesson, Draco had managed an uninterrupted thirty-six hours of sleep from Thursday to Saturday before the match, and had therefore been able to stay awake long after his Hufflepuff opponent was barely able to stay on his broom. Despite having played through the night before, he found himself still buzzing, and wondered if he'd get himself to bed this night either.

Though, watching the large piles of chocolate, butterbeer and more 'unapproved of' drinks around the place, there was a good chance nobody else would either.

"Gryffindor will have to watch themselves now. One slip and the trophy's ours!" Flint grinned wolfishly.

"They still win it if they beat Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff," Draco conceded, "And I doubt either of them have enough firepower to cause Wood and Potter problems."

"Maybe not," Flint admitted, "But does it really matter? All that anyone will remember of this year is that we beat Hufflepuff by TWO THOUSAND POINTS!"

He shouted the last words out to the room, and the gathered Slytherins roared back at him. It was nice to have a little piece of Hogwarts history wrapped up so early in his school career, and he could feel his approval with the older students rise too. If he'd known how great being seen as something other than a pampered daddy's-boy was during his first run through, he might have tried ditching the image earlier.

He settled into a huddle of sofas with the other first years. Anyone who didn't care about Quidditch still cared about Slytherin winning, and not even the most uninformed observer could have failed to notice that their score had more digits than usual. Taking pats on the back from Zabini and Nott, he relaxed for what felt like the first time in weeks as he watched the girls gush over the match. Only rarely did their opinions seem to make any sense (they seemingly cared more about who looked best on a broom than who was most effective), but it was still good to be able to relax as a group. As dorm mates. During both of his times at Hogwarts, the students that made up the current Slytherin first years had been too fractious, too divided, too isolated to work together effectively. The few times they had gelled as a team were when they were insulting the Gryffindors (usually Potter and his lackeys) in increasingly childish ways; hardly their finest hour.

Idly, Draco wondered which of the students around him would fall under the sway of a resurgent Dark Lord, and whether he could gather enough influence to save any of them. A morbid thought, far from suitable for such a joyous occasion, as he noticed two of them on whom he did have great influence over approaching.

"Crabbe, Goyle!" He called.

They ambled over. "Malfoy," Crabbe replied. "You were flying well today."

"Thanks," Draco said. And then he stopped.

Did Crabbe just -

"Well played." Goyle grunted in agreement.

\- he had.

He's spouted an opinion! Sure, it was simple, and everyone else in the room was thinking the same thing, but this was an honest, unprompted train of thought. As Draco hadn't been bragging about his own flying, it was either original or paraphrasing a source that wasn't Draco. While minions had their uses, Crabbe would be far more sufferable if he could hold a conversation that wasn't simply parroting Draco's words back at him, which made this development a very welcome change.

If he hadn't thought that he could make a difference, change his fate, before this moment, then he sure as Nurmengard believed it now. Truly, miracles were at work here.

"Not this year, kid, there's a reason they don't normally let firsties into the Quidditch team."

Flint's words brought him out of his little reverie, and Draco realised that he'd been staring in the direction of the two beaters taking shots of firewhiskey and laughing loudly. Blushing at his moment of absent-mindedness (for which he simultaneously loved and loathed his new body), Draco left the captain go off to his own friends and turned back to his fellow first years.

Maybe they weren't a team yet. But it was a start.

* * *

Walking down to Hagrid's with Ron and Hermione in tow, Harry reflected on the weekend. On one level, it seemed almost a waste. Draco's 'suspicious behaviour' was merely getting enough sleep before a twenty-four hour long Quidditch match, the rest of Slytherin House had been secretive about their sporting chances rather than a future Dark Lord they were raising amongst themselves, and the only negative arising from the past two days would be trying to dissuade Wood from implementing the same brutal regime in the run-up to the next Gryffindor match.

On the other hand, he wouldn't forget what he'd learnt on Friday. They'd discovered that Draco knew about Fluffy, and was wandering around both the castle and its grounds at odd hours. So maybe this time the brat had been innocently resting for a Quidditch match; Harry knew to follow his future activities with all the tricks he could muster. Something odd was going on, and he was determined to find out what it was.

But first, to Hagrid's.

The late winter sun was setting over the grounds, casting the lawns with a golden light as the three first years headed down to visit their big friend. They'd had dinner, once again sparing themselves from Hagrid's cooking (they were really becoming quite adept at this by now), and Harry was looking forward to whiling away the last hours of the weekend chatting over large mugs of steaming tea. With all the plots and deception in the castle, it was a relief to head down to good old dependable Hagrid for warm drinks and warm company.

The three reached the cabin at the edges of the grounds. Despite the half-light that twinkled around the castle, the curtains on Hagrid's windows were firmly closed, though Harry could see the shadows from the flickering of the flames dancing around their edges. Even though the day had been mild, it was always comfortable sitting around the hot fire.

A brief knock on the door later, and it creaked open slightly, revealing Hagrid's large face squashed in what little gap was between the door and the doorframe.

"Oh! Er, 'ello there, you lot."

"Hi, Hagrid!" Hermione replied. "Are you going to let us in?"

"Er... well, yer see, wasn't exactly expectin' company this evening, I wasn't..." Hagrid stumbled nervously.

"You invited us to tea during the match!" Ron exclaimed.

"Er... I suppose I did, didn't I..."

"And why do you have the fire up so much?" Hermione asked. Sure enough, even through the slim gap available, the Gryffindors could feel the heat radiating onto their skin from inside. Hagrid himself was sweating, though from nerves or the heat, Harry couldn't tell.

This was unlike him; Hagrid wasn't one to normally forget he had visitors (despite his state when her invited them over that morning), and regardless, would be welcoming towards them invited or not. At first, Harry wondered if his hangover had somehow taken a turn for the worse. But anything that would keep him disadvantaged this long wouldn't have been mild enough earlier to allow the groundskeeper to watch the match, and Hagrid was hardly the type to drink on school grounds in the middle of the afternoon.

"C'mon Hagrid, let us in." Ron whined. While not particularly polite, Harry's back was getting cold while his front was roasting, and he was keen to get to a set temperature so he could apply the appropriate charms accordingly.

"Well, I've a bit of a problem at the minute... not a problem, really, actually, it's rather beau'iful..."

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh, please Merlin, no.

Hagrid brightened up, as if coming to a decision.

"Alrigh', yer can come in, but I don' want a word of this to anyone, yer hear me?"

"What can't we speak a word of to any..." Hermione began, but was rendered speechless as Hagrid opened the door and hurriedly ushered the three of them inside.

Ron recovered first. "Er, Hagrid, is that... is that a...", but he couldn't bring himself to finish.

Yes, yes it was.

The word Harry swore caused Hagrid to choke, Ron to laugh, and Hermione to blush tomato red.

"... dragon egg?" Ron asked between giggles.

"Yep!" chirped Hagrid (and Harry seldom heard Hagrid chirp), with barely a glare at Harry for the indiscretion. "Isn't it just the most beau'iful thing you've seen?"

Despite himself, Harry couldn't quite find it in him to disagree.

 _A/N: Sorry for the delay. There might be a three (instead of two) week gap before the next chapter, but we should be straight through after that. Thanks for reading!_


	12. Chapter 12: Of Fangs and Friends

_A/N: Turns out I_ _have an odd definition of the number three... Anyway, we should now be back on track both time wise and plot wise. I'm currently in revision mode, so while I hope to stick to two week gaps, I can't prioritise this if I slip behind. Things should speed up from early May. Writing should get more straightforward too, as everything (hopefully) follows nicely from here on out._

* * *

12\. Of Fangs and Friends

Hushed whispers whimpered through the trees. A pitch black surrounded him on all sides - and yet there was somehow light enough to cast menacing shadows across the path, and to reveal movements in the undergrowth too dark to properly make out.

Draco was back in the Forbidden Forest, and by the signals around him, he was right in its heart.

With the trivial pursuits of Quidditch (not that he'd ever let Flint hear him say that) behind him, Draco was back on the hunt for pawns to spend in the coming war. It was, he felt, a mark of a burgeoning conscience that he no longer considered wizards for the role. The fact he wouldn't have trusted them with his safety anyway was, in his opinion, neither here nor there.

And so, once his fellow Slytherins were all asleep, he'd slipped on his cloak and past the few frantic students pulling vain all-nighters in the common room to return to the Forbidden Forest.

There, he found... not much.

A half hour ago he'd come across a patrolling centaur. Anyone who'd heard them speak of their beloved stars, however, would know that they weren't exactly famed for seeing clearly, and this principle seemed to hold equally true for small schoolboys scuttling around underneath invisibility cloaks as it did for the wondrous mysteries of the far future. Unseen, and for the most part unheard against the backdrop of other creatures equally keen to pass by undetected, it had been a simple matter to escape any further notice.

In the back of his mind, there had been one thought in the moment. Too sentient. While he didn't have the greatest respect for the half horsemen, he was still uncomfortable with the thought of enslaving one with the necessary restrictions to ensure his safety. Besides, a couple of years in the company of centaurs would drive him insane long before any Dark Lords or meddling headmasters.

So he was still out here, looking for something dumb, dangerous, and disguisable. No problem then.

He passed trees, bushes, undergrowth, all empty. For something supposedly 'forbidden', the forest was proving remarkably safe so far. Just his luck that the one time he was looking for trouble (and he shuddered at how brash and Gryffindorish that most alien of thoughts seemed), he should find his way unobstructed.

He sighed. Maybe tonight he'd have no more luck than he had in any of his previous ventures into the unknown woods. But he was making progress nonetheless. Every step forward gave him increasing familiarity with a different part of the forest, every creature he passed was one more practice at moving stealthily under his favourite Christmas present. The thumping in his chest at every sudden sound or half-stumble on a buried obstacle was training him for life in the war, a feeling near alien to him after eight years of peace and isolation.

Draco knew his actual eleven-year-old self would had given up, frustrated, long before now, or carelessly thrown his chances away in some ill thought out scheme that had no hope of success. But now he was patient, cunning, and could wait as long as was needed for the right opportunity to present itself.

For he was, after all, a Slytherin, and he was finally coming to realise what that meant.

* * *

"But it's a dragon!"

"Hush!"

"Don't 'hush' me, you're the one who started it!"

Harry groaned. Half a week had elapsed, and still no progress had been made on their dragon problem.

The good news was that no-one would find Hagrid snooping about the library trying to borrow books on dragon rearing. The bad news was that this was because all Madam Pince's offerings on the subject were sat in front of the three of them. While even Ron acknowledged that the feared librarian would get suspicious if a handful of first years suddenly showed an interest in raising highly illegal creatures, it was apparently fine for them to be open on their table, relying on the protection of their hidden corner of the library and general Hogwarts apathy regarding anything to do with Health and Safety to stay unnoticed.

Harry had brought Ron and Hermione here to determine the best way of prising Hagrid and his beloved soon-to-be pet apart. However, he soon found that things weren't to be so simple; their first task was agreeing to get rid of it in the first place.

Cue the current argument.

"But dragons are so cool!" Ron exclaimed.

"He lives in a wooden house!" Hermione came back, in a whispered shout that in no way diminished the ability of any potential eavesdroppers to hear.

In fairness to Ron, he took more awareness of this argument than Hagrid seemed to, and duly murmured that perhaps fire-breathing lizards and flammable huts were a potentially unfortunate combination. He still stuck to his main point - dragons were awesome and if Hagrid had one they could visit it - but at least he seemed to have thought about it.

But not deeply enough to spare anyone's ears from the current verbal jousting.

"Enough!" Harry interjected. Loudly.

Astonished - Harry had kept quiet for the last while - Hermione and Ron turned to him, mouths agape at the force of his intervention.

Dropping to a whisper, Harry continued.

"Ok, we have a disagreement, and by the sounds of things no-one's going to change their mind at this point."

Or ever. Because, though he loved his friends dearly, he freely acknowledged that the three of them each had stubborn streaks a mile wide, and Merlin help anyone who tried to talk them out of something once their minds were set. He'd spent far too much of his last Hogwarts schooldays when at least two of them had fallen out, mostly due to this refusal to admit they were wrong (or even just not-entirely-right). He was hoping that establishing an early policy of giving both participants time to cool off before they properly annoyed each other would lead to a better approach to resolving conflicts of opinion.

Plus, they'd just had Defence Against the Dark Arts as their last period, and he really didn't want to spend his relaxation time further aggravating the resultant headache. He wasn't particularly keen on spending it researching ways of dealing with illegally imported dragons either, but needs must.

"So, we're going to ignore this for the moment, because -" he strained, raising his voice ever so slightly at the inevitable protests, "- some of us aren't going to back down from legitimate safety concerns, and others are rather excited at the prospect of seeing a dragon, who is not going to be mature enough to breathe fire until a few weeks after it hatches, and is therefore not an immediate problem."

"How do you know that?" Hermione asked.

"It's in one of those books," Harry replied, waving vaguely over the pile. It had better be; they had the library's entire stock. Hermione, of course, immediately set about trying to find which one, Ron let out a low "Wicked!", and Harry breathed a sigh of relief that somehow throughout the whole row they'd avoided censure from opinionated eavesdroppers.

While he had been tempted to cast the 'Muffliato' spell on the conversation, causing anyone listening in to it to hear only a faint ringing, he'd been too scared of Professor Snape to make use of it. While the spell itself was mostly harmless, the Potions teacher would not be when he was wondering why incantations he'd made up in his own schooldays over a decade ago for use by mature wizards were being casually thrown around by first year Gryffindors. A wrathful Snape lead to awkward questions and incriminating answers, so Harry backed himself to come up with an adequate excuse should anyone overhear anything rather than face a full inquisition should the Head of Slytherin realise his personal repertoire had been misappropriated. The two had never quite recovered their brief rapport of the start of the year since that first Quidditch match had scuttled any thought of cooperation, although Harry still found Snape's treatment of him far fairer than that he was used to from before.

If Snape should get wind of the dragon... well, there was only so far eyelid-batting and green eye-emphasising could get you if Harry got caught pulling what Snape would no doubt consider a most James Potter-ish prank.

If they ever got around to dealing with the dragon in the first place.

But regardless, Harry was fairly confident that once the dragon had hatched, and Ron saw how quickly they grew and how inappropriate a shelter the hut would prove to be, he'd change his mind on the situation fairly quickly. He'd done so once already, after all.

"Well what do we do now, then?" Ron asked.

Harry considered. If they were taking a break from one project, the obvious replacement would be their other - stopping Quirrell (and more importantly, Voldemort) from getting the Philosopher's Stone. Ironically, having decided so much of the mystery so early in the year, they'd had very little to do on it since, and as such it had sort of, well, slipped their minds. Quite how it was possible for the return of the foulest dark wizard ever to have walked the shores of Britain to have 'slipped their mind', Harry didn't know, but he was damn sure that it was a bad idea. Besides, they still needed to figure out what, if any, role Draco had in all this. But above all, they needed to be prepared.

"I think we've had enough of the library for one day. Come on, I've got something to show you back in the common room."

And so once they returned the books on dragons back to the shelves as stealthily as possible (which was difficult, since some of the books weighed nearly as much as they did), they went back to Gryffindor Tower, curiosity rolling off Ron and Hermione as they did so.

* * *

Draco woke up to a dull murmuring in front of him. Although he used to be able to last weeks on very little sleep, and in the years following the war his rest was broken and haunted by nightmares (mainly of fiendfyre), he had found out quickly that the needs of a growing preteen were determined by their body, not their mind, and he now needed nearly as much sleep as anyone else.

Luckily, the day after his night in the Forbidden Forest, the Slytherins had a double period of History of Magic, a proud source of catch-up naps to Hogwarts students for generations.

The shuffling around the classroom informed him that Professor Binns was done droning for one lesson. Draco supposed it was possible that the ghost was continuing his seemingly never-ending monologue despite the fact the lesson had ended, and the class were leaving of their own accord - it certainly wouldn't be the first time - but, no, the old wraith was floating around by his chair, mouth for once shut.

"Catch all that, Crabbe?" he asked.

Crabbe, beside him, only grunted in response. He looked as if he had been half asleep for most of the lesson too, but in front of him was at least an attempt at having made some notes.

Being far too tied up in matters of much greater importance than a mere history lesson, Draco had delegated the task of paying attention to Crabbe. This left him free to doze, and was also good practice for the dreaded day when Draco would be desperate enough to rely on the lump for more critical affairs. Unfortunately, unlike Transfiguration or Charms, where you could know the underlying principles and deduce the rest of the theory from there, and in which Draco could carry his mark through his superior practical ability, neither strand of thought applied to History of Magic. Without any wandwork, he was as vulnerable to the whims of Professor Binns's inconsistent marking as any other student, and he had long forgotten the precise details needed for the exam. In this subject, he'd just have to sit down and learn it, which made relying on Crabbe for information a risk.

Still, he'd know enough to correct the more glaring errors, and could always cross-reference it with the version that Blaise would convince a friendly Ravenclaw to share with them.

Taking a glance over the sheet, it looked fine; or rather, there seemed to be a reasonable lot written down. It was too soon after waking up for Draco to be able to tell whether it was any good or not. At least Crabbe's handwriting had improved, a consequence of Draco refusing to correct his and Goyle's homework if he couldn't actually read it.

"Good job," he said anyway. "We'll check over it later. Any homework?"

Crabbe shook his head.

"Thank Merlin for that. Back to the common room, then, I suppose."

His two friends looked at each other and grinned. What was that supposed to mean?

It didn't take him long to find out.

"We've done it." announced a smug-looking Crabbe, once the three companions were safely settled back in their corner of the Slytherin common room.

"Done what?" asked Draco, but where before he would have snapped at their ambiguity, he was filled with a slight sense of... curiosity. Clearly, they were impressed with whatever it was they had done, and while that didn't necessarily mean Draco would be impressed by it, he wasn't going to put them down unless they deserved it.

Crabbe reached into his bag... and pulled out the _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade One_.

"We've learnt all the spells." Goyle finished proudly.

It was not rare for Draco to be struck speechless by his two shadows at various points of his Hogwarts life; that time in second year when he'd found them robeless, stuffed inside a cupboard shortly after fleeing their own common room lived particularly long in the memory. But seldom had Draco been so shocked by something praiseworthy rather than plain stupid.

"Show me," he snapped, his harsh tone mellowed by the sudden sense of excitement in the air.

And they did. Draco opened the book in front of him, picked out a few spells at random, and a few others of particular importance, and Crabbe and Goyle duly demonstrated their capabilities. The hovering charm, ticked off as quills whipped smartly around the airspace above the desk. The unlocking charm, which they'd already shown their knack for during their unfortunate run-in with the Cerberus. The various fire spells, as bluebottle flames fluttered in front of his eyes.

Sure, not all the spells were done particularly well, and few were done brilliantly, but they were all perfectly credible. Most importantly, they were leagues ahead of where the Crabbe and Goyle that Draco had been used to would have been able to manage.

What had been an improvised mix of working through homework together (saving the oafs a good many hours a week), Draco's Quidditch practice (which left them unaccompanied) and an off-the-cuff suggestion to do something productive with it (to keep them out of trouble that Draco would otherwise have to sort out later) now looked like a work of genius.

What happened when people who were only good at following orders were ordered to get good at something else?

"I am..." Amazed. Astonished. Dumbfounded. "... very impressed with your work. Well done."

Two big bulbous grins stared back at him. A strange feeling welled in Draco as he realised, perhaps for the first time ever, that they were kids. Not the mindless automatons turned nascent Death Eaters he had known before, but eleven-year-olds, eager to please, searching for an acceptance that they'd never had from their parents or professors.

Draco thought back to those lonely years, isolated, of just himself and Astoria after the war. They had no network save for pardoned and imprisoned Death Eaters, few friends of any description, no contacts to revitalise themselves out of their deep malaise. Was this not why he had come back from that bleak future in the first place?

He had unprecedented access to the two boys for the next six and a half years. Where before, he'd merely used the lumbering muscle in whatever puerile scheme took his fancy that year, now, he could do something... greater.

Why make a friend, when you could forge one?

"It'll need improving, of course, till it comes more naturally." No point in letting them get too big a head. "But it's a start. Now we can work on some..."

Draco thought. The possibilities this opened up... he reflected on Gryffindor's famous Golden Trio, the scarred brat, his pet weasel, and the walking bird's nest. The friendship he had so envied when he had walked Hogwarts's halls alone. Admittedly, that was mostly his fault, as he spent most of his third year trying to get a school pet executed (a decidedly odd pastime for any thirteen-year-old), and most of his sixth year trying to do in the headmaster. But that was what a fresh start was all about; new chances.

"... training."

* * *

"Ta-da!"

"It's a book." Ron grumbled.

"It's a book on duelling." Harry corrected him, watching as Ron's eyes lit up.

Hermione, completing their little group in a corner of the common room, was torn, her natural eagerness for new knowledge conflicting with her natural scepticism at what Harry assumed looked like a crazed glint in his eye.

"And what exactly were you planning to do with this book on duelling?" she asked.

"Learning it, of course!" Or rather, teach it to you two. Given that there was no reason for an ostensibly muggle-raised child to have advanced duelling knowledge, most Hogwarts students not being graduates of the Auror academy, Harry decided that they'd have to learn it together. And if he picked it up quicker than seemed normal, well, that was only to be expected due to how well he got on in classes.

"Awesome!" Ron grinned. "When do we start?"

Harry pretended to check an imaginary watch. "I was thinking... sometime around now." he said with a smirk.

If the second war against Voldemort turned as nasty as the one Harry had known (and he hoped he would be able to strike off the viper's head long before that happened, but it was well to be prepared), his friends would be on the front line. Of more immediate concern was the current facade of Voldemort wandering the corridors under Quirrell's turban, and the yet to be determined threat from the ever peculiar Malfoy. In either event, Ron and Hermione needed to know how to defend themselves. While they wouldn't be able to go toe to toe with any serious opposition for a while yet, the less they were relying on Harry to defend them, the more focussed he could be on neutralising the attackers, and the fewer awkward questions he'd have to face about his unusual skill set.

They made their way to an abandoned classroom. Harry had already decided a 'curriculum' of sorts for them to work through; nothing particularly difficult, that they'd have a hard time explaining to anyone who caught them at it. Harry was also acutely aware that his friends would probably be in more danger if Voldemort considered them a threat. Eventually, they would no doubt draw his ire regardless, but for now the dark wizard would be unlikely to risk provoking Dumbledore unless he felt cornered, and there were few ways better at attracting the headmaster's attention than by threatening or harming his students.

Instead, Harry had picked out lesser spells, ones which were often in a first year's repertoire anyway (at least, first years who constantly hung out with the brightest witch of their generation and who found themselves in life threatening situations improbably often). The goal was instead to have them come naturally enough that they wouldn't be forgotten about in the panic of a real combat situation, and sort out other pesky sources of irritation to novices, like 'aiming' and 'rate of fire'.

Thus was spent a happy afternoon of freezing, disarming, and occasional knocking into each other. After her initial misgivings that this was yet another aspect of magic that Harry was innately better than her at, Hermione resolved to get one over on him for the rest of the session. Harry laughed as he danced away from her spells; of all the things to get competitive over, this was one area where even the old Hermione never quite managed to get the better of him. Despite this, he maintained a careful eye on her progress; he still worried of the effects this would have on Hermione's long term view of herself.

He really hoped she wouldn't be too hard on him when (if? No, when) he finally came clean about his time-travelling shenanigans; although, to be fair, he would probably deserve whatever she threw at him (though hopefully not literally).

Ron, meanwhile, seemed to accept this was just another part of the Boy-Who-Lived's natural awesomeness; mock combat training was, after all, much more likely to come under the conqueror of Voldemort's remit than acing Charms tests. This was, in its own way, just as dangerous as Hermione's feelings, but in the cramped confines of the classroom and with a very limited spell selection, Harry's wiry frame was as much of an advantage in twisting out of the way than any future knowledge.

They focussed on petrifying and disarming. As they had first come across these spells in year one and two respectively, no-one would question them knowing either charm. It would also provide Ron and Hermione with at least some options as to how to deal with opponents, disabling or disarming as appropriate (with key questions including 'is this person still a threat without a wand?' or 'do I want to speak with this person after I hex them?').

"Cor, Harry," Ron said, as Harry unfroze him for the umpteenth time, "Snape has no chance of getting his mitts on any Philosopher's Stone with you around."

Harry snorted. Even with his time as Voldemort's antagonist-in-chief and as an Auror, he wouldn't consider himself a certain victor against the ex-Death Eater, past and future Order of the Phoenix member, and expert spy. Confident, yes, but not by so much that victory was assured; long experience had taught him that luck had much to play with in a duel between any two such skilled opponents.

He could also see no way of realigning their suspicions towards Professor Quirrell; if you didn't already know the story from the future, the very idea seemed utterly ridiculous. The master deceiver who'd duped the government for an entire year was also pretty good at diverting the attention of eleven-year-olds (who had, in Harry's opinion, about as much - if not slightly more - common sense).

"And with three of us, he's got no hope at all, Ron," he laughed back, "we'll have the world saved before lunchtime."

"Reckon any of the others want in?" Ron asked.

Harry paused. Introducing their other year mates to similar practice was a point worth considering. Learning self defence would be good for them, no matter how quickly he finished Voldemort. On the other hand, without the legends to his name or the pressing need to learn it that the dark wizard's return would provide, it would be a stretch for him to maintain any sort of discipline (not to mention the loss of four year's maturity from everybody involved). There was a fine line between starting Dumbledore's army a few years early, and creating a ragtag militia just as likely to harass passing Slytherins as they were to defend Hogwarts from invasion.

"Probably best to keep it to ourselves for now. We wouldn't want to make too much of a racket here - even Binns can't be that deaf." he replied.

Looking around at the furniture surrounding them (slightly more broken than it was when they arrived), they all giggled along before Harry continued.

"Seriously, though, whoever's going for the stone, it'll be Dumbledore they're scared of. As long as he's around, Hogwarts is safe. It'll be him that stops anyone making off with the Philosopher's Stone - we're just here as the backup plan." he finished with a smile.

Trelawney would have been proud.


	13. Chapter 13: Fire and Blood

13\. Fire and Blood

"Good, Crabbe, good. Now try another."

Draco, Crabbe and Goyle were sitting in the Slytherin common room, with hats, quills, and cushions circling round them at head height. At Draco's words, Crabbe's already furrowed brow crinkled again in exertion, and a flick of his wand later, a roll of parchment duly picked itself up and attempted to join the throng. This caused two of the airborne quills to wobble, and after a moment of uncertainty all three crashed back to the desk.

Actually, they floated down rather serenely; it was, after all, extremely difficult to get a feather quill to 'crash' anywhere. All the same, the spell had been broken, and another quill and cushion met the same fate as Goyle's concentration was broken in turn by the new distraction.

"Oh well," Draco shrugged, "Give it another go."

Now that his two bookends had demonstrated a passing competency of the general first year syllabus, Draco was working on varying and enhancing their skills. If they could master the magic they were learning, not simply pass the exams, everything would go much smoother when it came to doing the same thing next year. Hence they were currently working on the hovering charm again, but trying to float multiple items at once.

Surprisingly, it was going rather well.

Draco himself had a half dozen pieces of assorted paraphernalia whistling round his head. For a fully trained wizard, the exercise was rather straightforward, but by no means trivial; he hadn't exactly been keen to expand on Professor Flitwick's teachings before, and had tended to summon things rather than hover them when living with Astoria after the war. It had taken a few minutes to achieve the finesse required, but after a couple of attempts he soon had everything going smoothly and was able to turn his attention to the progress (or otherwise) of his companions.

Truthfully, they weren't as bad as he might have feared. Crabbe had his quill and cushion airborne just as Draco began instructing them, and Goyle wasn't long after. A couple of tips here, a hint of two there, and the preciously shaky flight paths morphed into graceful orbits.

Which brought Draco back to the present; attempting to levitate a third piece up to the other two. This was more challenging, not least because the method Crabbe had stumbled upon prior to his intervention had been to keep his eyes fixed on one object and his wand trained on the other, and had now run out of things to point with.

Not to worry; practice made perfect, and the Hogwarts years were long.

Goyle growled in frustration.

"You, too," Draco encouraged. "Ignore outside distractions, focus on the charm."

Ever the Slytherin, there were other reasons behind the new training. It would improve their magical ability, yes. Provide a welcome boost to their Charms mark, certainly. Open the lackeys' minds to the idea of expanding their horizons beyond what they were directly instructed on... well, maybe. Draco was very much aware he may have just installed himself as their fount of all knowledge instead.

But beyond these, it was an exercise in precision. Draco was perfectly confident that, in time, he could take them to a hidden part of the castle and drum enough blasting hexes into them to raze muggle London. They had, after all, made solid if particularly unimaginative Death Eater trainees in the last war. But not only were they currently unready for such power (he didn't want them to _actually_ raze muggle London, after all), if they were to reach their full potential they would need more than raw strength. They needed delicacy, subtlety, cunning. In short, it was not only expanding their magical preferences, but remedying their personal philosophies as well.

The improvement in their schoolwork had already been astonishing, and Draco found himself slightly annoyed that no-one else would ever fully comprehend the miracles he was working every night after lessons. He was someone who had put up with them scraping by from year to year on barely-passable marks and the half-knowledge that Dumbledore, soft and senile as he was, would never actually follow through on the statutory threats to kick out anyone who failed the end-of-year exams. The difference between those fools and his current companions was staggering. But the professors, who'd always seen decent homework from them (courtesy of Draco checking it over), saw a more gradual development of previously-shy boys growing in confidence and proficiency over he year. To anyone who didn't expect the two to act out the part of bumbling buffoons, they appeared your perfectly average but unspectacular Hogwarts students.

Draco supposed he was lucky that no-one was around to spot the differences. After all, nothing would signal foul play faster than an intelligent Crabbe and Goyle. All the same, he found that it still rankled that perhaps his greatest work would go forever unappreciated.

* * *

"Aww... isn't he a cutie?"

Having known Hagrid for his entire magical life, Harry was pretty used to seeing his big friend coo over various creatures that few in the wizarding world would consider 'cuddly'. And it had to be said, Norbert (or Norberta, or whatever his pet ended up being called this time) _was_ fairly adorable. It's snout ended in a cute, button-like nose (smoking softly), and what would one day become fearsome fangs were currently white bumps just visible above the gumline.

"Wicked," cried Ron, while Hermione just stared, awestruck.

Whatever else was said about the wisdom of raising illegal animals in one of the most gossip-rampant regions of the country, it wasn't every day you got to see a dragon hatching. And Norbert, taking his (or her, but Harry was very sure he wasn't going to let Hagrid hear him say 'its') first steps along the counter, had just done exactly that.

They were gathered in Hagrid's house, the three Gryffindors having been summoned from the common room by an owl carrying a hastily scrawled 'Its happening!' on a piece of scrap parchment. By the time they had grabbed their cloaks and ran down to the hut, the distinctive black ridges that gave the species its name were already visible through the eggshell.

Harry had come armed with excuses and arguments as to why dragons were a bad idea, and that this would definitely end awfully, and had duly prepped Hermione to back him up, but in that instant, he couldn't do it. Watching Hagrid gather "Little Norbert, ma precious one!" into his massive arms, he knew today was a time for celebration.

Damage limitation could come later.

The scales were currently a dull brown, with nothing of the gleaming wonder they would later take, and his claws were mere tender nails as poor Norbert (as Hagrid's new pet had once again been christened) clung to his adopted... mother, Harry supposed, for dear life. Compared to the fully fledged dragons Harry had faced (both from the Triwizard Tournament and from one particularly dim smuggler Harry had dealt with as an Auror), it was hard to imagine him causing much trouble. Of course, for a XXXXX-rated magical creature, simply existing was quite often trouble enough.

But this was not a night for such worries, and the fire that the egg had hung over during incubation now continued roaring its approval at the new arrival. The night went on, and all four of them took turns holding their newest charge and feeding him a somewhat vile concoction of what appeared to be oil and chicken's blood. Eventually, when little Norbert had had enough of the broth and attention, he curled up by the fire, and everyone returned to their respective beds.

Clambering back through the Fat Lady's picture frame that hid the entrance to the Gryffindor common room, Harry felt a little stab of remorse at what he had to do. He knew, objectively, that both Norbert and Hagrid would be a good deal better off if the former joined Ron's brother on a Romanian dragon preserve. But the look on Hagrid's face... well, he looked about as happy as anyone would on having their deepest wish fulfilled.

* * *

The forest was, as was becoming usual, quiet.

Once more under the invisibility cloak and the cover of darkness, Draco stalked the wooded paths, eyes keenly pierced for his as-yet-unknown quarry. The half moon scattered its meagre offerings through the branches, and an eerie half-light settled over the undergrowth.

In the darkness, everything was a dark monochrome, and the pale moonlight raised Draco's vision from black to a light grey. Grey dirt, grey bark, a grey glow off the leaves, silver liquid pooled on a fern...

That wasn't right. Draco fixed the foliage with another stare. The night was dry, and the glowing liquid which had settled on the leaves was unnatural even beyond the ethereal gloom of the forest. He reached out to touch it...

But his hand was still underneath his cloak, and Draco was suddenly paralysed at the thought of removing his Christmas present. In fact, a shiver went up his spine, making him feel very, _very_ , small, at the thought of doing anything beyond curling up under the invisible blanket until sunrise. He stood there, transfixed, his covered hand mere inches from the wetness. Fighting his body for every inch, he forced himself to turn his head back to the path. There! Up above - a mere ten paces ahead, on a ridge twice as tall as Draco - another damp glow radiated from a bush which hid the track beyond.

Feeling very much like this was something he shouldn't be doing - _you're in the Forbidden Forest, alone, in the deepest night, Draco; of course this isn't something you shouldn't be doing_ he rapped himself - he stalked as silently as he could to the next waypoint.

And a waypoint it was. Upon scaling the small rise, he caught sight of another glistening leaf beyond the second. He followed onwards, for once unsure of himself, certain of nothing other than he should neither take off the cloak nor touch the liquid. And when he reached that third mark - cautiously, with small, hesitant steps - there came another, then another, more frequently now, until the trail stopped.

And there the horror started.

The mystery of the silver goo came to an abrupt close as he stumbled upon the carcass.

Unicorn blood.

Steeling himself - its all okay, they're just stories, nothing can harm you if you _just don't touch it_ \- he deciphered the scene in front of him.

The unicorn lay on its side, legs splayed out in the dirt. It's previously flawless hide was awash with mud and bramble, and at the base of its neck sat two deep puncture wounds. Bite marks.

But what, even in the forbidden forest, could even hope to catch a unicorn, never mind kill one? What could be so desperate, so cruel, so foul?

The blood pooled in a puddle under the creature's head. It was this that Draco had been unwittingly tracking; the final flight of the fatally wounded beast. Which meant that whatever had dealt the creature it's final blow was...

... behind him.

The brisk air cooled further, and a chilling frost ran up Draco's limbs, freezing him in place. It was behind him, he knew. What it was, where it had come from, he had no idea, but it was there. Despite having his back turned to the thing, unable to even turn his head, he knew _it was there_. He hadn't seen it, heard it, or even smelt it, in fact other than the damnable cold that dominated his senses he had no way of knowing anything about it, but he was certain that _it was there,_ right behind him. Frantically, he tried to reassure himself. He was fine, it couldn't see under the cloak, all he had to do was turn his body out of the path between the monster and its noble prey and he would be as safe as he would be tucked up in his bed back at Hogwarts.

But he couldn't move. Not because any movement ran the risk of creating enough noise to get caught, although it might do. No, he couldn't move because he was rooted to the spot by the ice thrumming through his veins.

The air behind him hissed.

The only frame of reference Draco could find to fit such fear was the presence of a dementor. But if that was the case, he should be reliving his worst memories right now, not stood frozen staring straight at a unicorn corpse. It was possible, some far-removed part of his mind wondered, indifferent to the plight of his body, that this _was_ his worst experience. Alone, deep in the Forbidden Forest, a dead unicorn in front of him and cursed blood around him, an unknown threat approaching his rear. Things could hardly get much worse.

The horror strode forwards. At least, the cold deepened, for Draco still couldn't move anything other than his eyes, which he flicked desperately from side to side. At last, from his peripheral vision, he earned his first sight of the monster.

It was humanlike, in a black cloak.

Draco was still stuck to the ground, and a growing apprehension dawned on him that his paralysis was caused not from pure fear - he would have shrugged that off quickly, if not at once - but by some conscious magic from the figure. The consequences were stark - if the thing before him could do that, then it knew exactly where he was, and had disabled him before Draco realised it was even there. Despite this, despite having caught more prey in its unholy snare, it... ignored him.

Instead, it swept past to his right, stooped to the blood still trickling from the unicorn's throat, and drank.

Afterwards, Draco couldn't recall whether the scene passed in silence or whether the quiet was punctuated by sickening slurps. Nor would he be able to tell anyone whether the hood retreated to reveal some ghastly visage, or whether the blood just vanished into a mere absence of a face. All he knew was shock, and disgust, and an all-pervading sense of simple _wrongness_ that chilled him to his core.

When the beast, or thing, or whatever it was had drank its fill, it fixed Draco with one final stare (which, given he still couldn't make out any eyes, was perversely impressive) and vanished into the black woodland.

The magic fixing him in place dissipated, but Draco remained there nevertheless. The corpse of the unicorn, with the wound on its shoulder now dry, remained lying not a dozen paces in front of him, and his ears were filled only with a faint ringing of their own making.

Until, that was, he heard another crunch behind him.

"Blimey, we really gotta stop getting caught if they keep sticking us out here. We'll never pull off another trick again if we can't sleep to dream them up in the first place."

Aware that the figure on the path would eventually bump into him, and that invisibility cloaks did nothing to change the fact his body was still physically there, he started forwards. Caught out of bed, at who knew what hour of the morning (he certainly didn't know, all sense of time had vanished with the thing's appearance), in front of a dead and bloodless unicorn, would be very difficult for even Draco to talk himself out of.

But only a half minute along his way, his ears picked up something else.

"Bloody forest, I'd take Filch and his corridors any day."

The same voice, the same tone, the same mix of resignation and astonishment.

How had his pursuer run around him unnoticed? And why was he now heading back towards Draco?

Draco doubled back and returned the way he came, trying not to think about what he had left behind. Just before he reached that accursed place, he was nearly blinded as the darkness of the forest exploded in green light.

Sheltering his eyes with his free hand - he had drawn his wand upon hearing the voice for a second time - he squinted, blinked hard, and watched the sight in front of him.

A figure - not much larger than Draco - was holding aloft a wand, and shooting forth green sparks high into the air. The light wasn't quite enough to make out the person's face, but they didn't look large enough to be taking their OWLs, never mind walking the Forbidden Forest alone at night. If it wasn't for the wand they were clutching, he might have thought it a magical creature.

A burst of running sounded from behind him, and it took all the quick reflexes of a seeker to dart out of the way.

"Wha'did'ya find, Fred?" came the voice from earlier.

The figure by the unicorn said nothing. Draco's dodge had taken him deep into a nest of thorns, and if it wasn't for the protective charms on his cloak he'd probably have torn it ragged. Merlin, if it wasn't for the cloak itself, he'd have torn himself ragged. As such, he was trying to make as little movement as possible, both to remain quiet and avoid dislodging his protection.

Finally, the other voice spoke up.

"A dead one, George. Just as Hagrid said."

Fred? George? Draco nearly groaned in frustration. So that was why the voices had sounded so similar to each other. Mentally reprimanding himself for not recognising them earlier, he wondered why of all people the Weasley twins were wandering the forest at night. Sure, they were the most likely to disregard the rules, but he had thought even those two troublemakers had slightly more sense than this. As deep as they were in the woods, there were a plethora of terrible creatures who wouldn't mind dining on Hogwarts student if it came their way.

Like that thing from earlier, Draco thought with a shudder. Why it released him remained as much a mystery as to how it had caught him in the first place.

"Yuck." George grinned (it was impossible to make out his face, but it was said with the twins' usual levity so Draco thought it safe to assume they were smiling, despite the macabre venture). "Definitely one of the worse detentions we've done."

Detention? How could the school be mad enough to give students detention in the Forbidden Forest at night?

But then, as soon as the thought had crossed his mind, Draco remembered hazy details long buried deep in his memory. He looked across at the twins again, and sure enough, Hagrid's boarhound was lying across Fred's feet, whimpering.

That was a night he had found no problem forgetting. Having found Potter out of bed and out of hours (not too dissimilar to the situation he was in now, he thought distastefully), he'd gleefully reported him to Professor McGonagall, only to find the stern witch was more than happy to punish himself for being up late too. Their punishment for being out of bounds in the early hours of the morning... was to accompany Hagrid into the Forbidden Forest in the early hours of the morning.

Perhaps not Hogwarts's finest hour of disciplinary action.

As Draco was now all too aware, something was now killing the unicorns, which meant unfortunate rules-breakers were likely to be sentenced to investigate it. Quite what the thing from earlier would do to any irritating detectives should they actually find it didn't bear thinking about, though he supposed it had left him alone easily enough. Perhaps too easily.

Refocusing on the present, he tried to extract himself from the thorns. A little pull here, a tug there, trying desperately to lift the folds of the cloak over the branches without raising it by enough for his arms to be seen.

"What's that?"

At the shout, Draco looked back at the clearing. One of the twins was pointing... right at him.

Damn. He may have been invisible, but the bush behind him most certainly wasn't, and they must have seen the leaves and branches shaking behind him.

He paused.

The twins paused.

More silence.

Then,

"One easy way to find out," George shrugged at his brother. "Stupefy!"

For all their joking, the bolt was powerful, and despite the fact they couldn't see him, inerringly accurate. Draco leapt out of the way, which, of course, then jolted the foliage further. Hopefully, they'd just attribute it to the force of the stunner...

"It moved!" Fred cried, before joining in on the action. "Stupefy! Stupefy!"

Outnumbered, caught off guard and out of position, and aware that Hagrid (having been summoned by the green sparks from earlier) would be there at any moment, Draco considered his options. It didn't look good. The wild casting had missed him so far, but the reckless redheads were rapidly approaching his position, and if he was stunned it would be game over. Either he'd get trodden on and noticed, leading to many embarrassing questions, or face getting eaten by a creature that depended more on its nose than its eyes for food. Neither option particularly appealed to him, so abandoning any attempt at subtlety, he gave a great tug and tore himself free. Any lesser garment would have been shredded to ribbons, and his arms and legs - now bare after the jostling of the cloak - took a mighty battering from the splintered wood and pointed barbs, but he made it, tumbling backwards as the resistance vanished.

"Look! A leg!"

Dammit. He glanced down and sure enough his bare leg was now visible, with the invisibility cloak tangled about his torso and the entire clearing lit up in green and red spellfire. Despite the fall, Draco had kept hold of his wand, and silently slammed a shield between him and his aggressors. Undaunted (damnable Gryffindor heroics), Fred and George spread out to maximise the area he had to cover. Hastily rearranging the cloak, and ducking out of the ever more accurate jinxes and hexes getting sent his way, Draco decided discretion was the better part of valour. He fled.

Down the dirt paths, flying of wood, earth, and stone, the edges of his cloak whipping at his heals. Something slammed into his elbow - the cloak caught most of the impact, but the jarring blow nearly knocked his wand out of his hand - but he paid it no heed, nor did he try to hide the sound he was making on his retreat. Instead, he relied on the fact that the twins wouldn't go too far from the corpse or they'd end up hopelessly lost, and too far from Hagrid to find their way back again...

"Oof!"

Lost in thought, Draco had run straight into the half-giant. Ten feet of muscle and furs, beard fearsome in the moonlight, the figure was not the blubbering oaf he had so often mocked in the past. This was a Hagrid who was simultaneously at home in and wary of the forest, on guard and in his element, ready for every threat from wizard or creature.

"Who's 'at?" Hagrid snarled.

Draco gave no time for him to find an answer, or to use the loaded crossbow clutched at his chest. Instead he sprinted away, somewhere, anywhere, for a safe haven he could escape to. No crossbow bolt flew past his ear, and he praised the gamekeeper's soft spot that wouldn't let him fire on a potentially innocent creature. But he was still not safe, so continued running, deeper and deeper into the forest, always running...

By the time he stopped, gasping for breath and with the cuts on his arms and legs stinging furiously, he was thoroughly off-course. The trees looked the same in all directions, and the leaves were too thick to search for any hint of light in the sky. He'd been in the forest for hours; between his original searches, the time locked in place by that haunted thing, and his flight from the Weasleys and Hagrid, it could well be nearly morning by now. And if he wasn't in bed by then...

Well, at least if they found him missing, they probably couldn't make up anything more incriminating than the actual truth. Looking for a monstrous servant to survive the coming war with, finding something that drinks unicorn blood, having spent all night in the Forbidden Forest. He'd be out of Hogwarts before he could say 'Quidditch'.

He might have to do something about the dirt and blood stuck to his limbs before they bought any potential excuses, though.

When his breathing had steadied to a mere pant, he straightened up, and looked around once more for clues as to where he was. He hadn't been in this part of the forest before; the leaves here were that much darker, and there were certainly more cobwebs around than he was used to.

Accompanied only by a strange chittering sound he couldn't place, Draco picked a direction and strode onwards.


	14. Chapter 14: Arachnid Assailants

_A/N: This proved... much harder than expected. I don't know why, and I'm still not particularly happy with it, but that's why it's late. Let me know what you think._

* * *

14\. Arachnid Assailants

Blood was running down his scratched limbs, the stinging had progressed to a throbbing ache, and his tired legs were groaning in exhaustion as Draco half ran, half back-stepped away from his pursuers.

Draco had at last found his creature; something dangerous and primitive, but which could still follow orders. Something large enough to be a threat and small enough to hide from the wider world. Really, he didn't see how he hadn't hit on this before; after all, the Dark Lord had used the very same animals during his rise to power.

The only slight snag in the plan was that it wasn't really Draco that had found his target; rather, his targets had found him.

Spiders. Lots of very large, very angry spiders.

"Stupefy!" he roared.

A red light shot from his wand and into the undergrowth. Sure enough, the large shadow lurking there keeled over, scuttled as its eight legs curled in the air above it.

Great. One down, several hundred to go.

They came from behind him, deceptively hot on his heels with a speed that belied their apparent awkwardness. They came from the sides, black lumps leaping from sinister-looking shrubbery that he only just darted away from in time. Looking either side, he saw more shapes in the darkness, trying to get in front of him and cut him off.

A part of him welcomed this display of tactical nous as proof that the beasts were somewhat intelligent, coordinated enough to follow a reasonably complex plan, and had excellent predatory instincts he'd be sure to put to good use.

The other part of him grimaced at the knowledge that should they actually surround him, he'd be screwed.

As Draco continued his fighting retreat, his brain ticked away furiously. Objectives. In panicked situations, always focus on objectives. Firstly, get out alive. Secondly, don't let anyone in the castle know what you've been up to. In practice, that implied he had to get back before general reveille, and couldn't do anything too flashy. So no burning down half the Forbidden Forest, which, Draco now realised, meant he couldn't use any of those very-useful fire spells.

Lucky Acromantula.

Finally, he'd be rather grateful if he could capture one, preferably two, of the giant spiders now, so he could put this creeping-round-the-forest-at-night business to rest and go back to being a normal schoolchild. As normal as he could get, anyway.

Thus as the next one jumped at him, he ducked under it before shooting a shrinking spell at its massive underbelly. Acromantula were, after all, merely enormous spiders, and if Draco could turn them into regular-sized spiders, his job would be halfway done. It would then be a simple matter of stunning or petrifying them, dropping them in his pocket, and fleeing the forest as quickly as he could before his victims' brethren could avenge them.

His duck took him clean under the spider, and in mid-air it had no time to change direction as the shrinking spell blasted into its hide. The shrinking spell which...

... did absolutely nothing.

Draco swore. Maybe not just merely giant spiders, then.

On a second glance, 'absolutely nothing' seemed to be a bit of an optimistic assessment of the situation. The spider was now furious, and its eyes gleamed even brighter in the blackness as it descended on him with a vengeance.

Apparently, Acromantula were not fond of attempted shrinkings.

"Stupefy!" he roared again. The shot caught the spider in one of its many eyes, downing the beast. Draco was hesitant to use anything that would be considered too dark; for a start, Acromantula were (while definitely primitive) still sentient, and he was reluctant to inflict too much pain on them as long as this hesitance didn't risk his own life. He was also unsure as to how easily Dumbledore would be alerted to dark curses so close to Hogwarts, whether it be from the castle's wards or the future observations of pesky gamekeepers. And given how much trouble he was in at the moment, he'd rather not annoy the Acromantula too much if he could help it.

Stunning another spider, this last goal was beginning to seem rather forlorn. The downside to restricting his spellcasting was the spiders' innate resistance; if he couldn't catch them in the vulnerable underside or face, they'd need several blows to go down.

Like that one did, he thought, finally defeating it with a third stunner.

The remaining beasts - the many, many, remaining beasts - were on him too fast for him to try and lay a claim to any of his unconscious foes, and he was forced further backwards before he could try to capture any.

A soft thud sounded behind him, and it was all Draco could do to spin out of the way of the following pounce. Where had that come from? Glancing up, he caught sight of Acromantula falling from the trees; some lowering themselves gently from their webs, others just dropping straight onto the dirt tracks below them. They didn't seem to be very accurate; Draco was still half caught up in his invisibility cloak, and although the hood was down and it had come untied at the front, the glimmering protection matched with his slight physique still made him a much harder target than others might have been. He briefly thought about trying to hide again, but dismissed the idea as soon as it came; nearly surrounded by predators on the hunt, he wasn't going to bet his life on his ability to fool the spiders. Speed, not stealth, would get him out of this.

With yet another leap, another many-legged fiend launched itself at his head. Dropping himself just in the nick of time, one of those limbs still managed to catch him on the head, turning his duck into an undignified collapse. He rolled, he twisted, he squirmed, as the outrunner's companions caught up with it, and Draco found himself facing a half dozen of them at once. Pincers gnashed and limbs thrashed, but he made it to his feet, avoiding major blows while the glancing ones merely rolled off his cloak. A quick check into the distance confirmed this number was only going to increase if he waited around, so he took a leaf out of the spiders' book and picked a direction and jumped. Surprised at the sudden change of tactics, the Acromantula missed to opportunity to snap at him and despite his short legs, he made it out of the trap.

Abandoning his measured retreat, Draco simply turned and ran.

It wasn't till Draco was much, much further down the path that he dared to stop and look back. Through the darkness that still pervaded through the trees - though they seemed somewhat less dark than they were before, and Draco wasn't sure whether his eyes were adapting to this lack of light, or whether this was the first sign of an impending dawn.

It'd have been good to have completed his task tonight - then he could finally be done with this thrice-damned forest and get some well-deserved rest. Still, the night could have gone much worse. The coast was clear - he was safe.

It was perhaps inevitable that as soon as he thought this, one last burst of scuttling sounded behind him.

Acromantula. Two of them.

Draco peered beyond them to see how many more were following, but it appeared they were alone. Excellent. For the first time that night, luck seemed to be on his side.

The spiders charged, only to clatter themselves off a hastily erected shield. Draco cast a banishing charm at one of them, sending it flying into a nearby tree trunk, before firing a barrage of stunners the other in its absence. This Acromantula, though, seemed smarter than it's nestmates, and kept its underside close to the ground, eyes half closed, and Draco's attacks seemed to just bounce off its exoskeleton to no effect.

On the other hand, it was crouched so low that it couldn't really attack him, so he turned his attention to its rapidly returning partner. Another carefully aimed banishing charm flipped it onto its back, and a single "Stupefy!" later his work was half done.

The last standoff was broken when Draco paused, thought for a bit, and abandoned his duelling stance to simply levitate the spider two metres into the air. Realising it's previous tactics were now thoroughly useless, the Acromantula frantically waved its legs around to no avail. After all, while comfortable on the ground or even in the treetops, they were hardly well adapted for flight, and with his opponent indisposed it was a straightforward matter to knock it out and lay it alongside its partner.

At last, the damn thing was done.

Thankfully, Draco had everything else he needed reasonably close at hand, because he was pretty sure dawn was imminent and he was absolutely knackered. He made it - finally - to the cache he'd hidden just inside the edge of the Forest, dragging the Acromantula with conjured ropes as he went, and dug up two of the wooden crates he had buried there. Opening them up, he levitated his new pets in.

There. He was finished handling the damn monsters until the next holidays. Thank bloody Merlin for that.

Next, he fished out two vials from a third, smaller box. The Draught of Living Death. Perfect for inducing a coma-like state on two beasts he would much rather not have to deal with while in transit. Draco measured out the portions, guesstimating how much would incapacitate them until they were safely back at Malfoy Manor. It was a shame he couldn't have done this in advance (not knowing exactly which magical creature he'd end up kidnapping); he didn't want to overdose and risk the spiders dying, nor was he keen on having them wake up early. Luckily, potion dosing was an imprecise science at the best of times - Polyjuice Potion being a particularly odd case - so as long as he fed them something reasonable, it should prove to be alright in the end.

Hopefully.

After lowering the crates back into the cache, with just a light dusting of dirt on top of them to deter the casual onlooker, a tired, bloody, and limping Draco made it back to Hogwarts. Hurrying back to the Slytherin common room unseen (he was really starting to fall in love with the benefits of his invisibility cloak) he was relieved to see the four other boys asleep in their beds. Draco frowned. Showering might wake them, but, well, in his state he could hardly afford not to wash. Blood and mud coated his skin, his usually slick hair was a mess, and his robes were utterly ruined.

The invisibility cloak itself, fortunately enough, was no worse for wear at all, and still looked to be in the same condition as it had when he'd received it on Christmas afternoon. His father hadn't been kidding; it had every charm money could buy, plus a fair few that Draco suspected it couldn't.

Torn between wanting to hit his bed immediately, and wanting to stay in the warm shower for the rest of the week, he gave himself a harsh but hasty scrub, gathered his old robes in a knot, and re-entered the dorm room.

Only to find Theo facing him.

"What are you doing up this early?" Draco asked.

Theo looked at him as if he'd grown an extra head.

"Getting ready, same as you. It's only half of an hour till breakfast."

Half an hour?

Sure enough, gazing out the window of the dorm (which had to be enchanted, because surely all the dormitories in the dungeons couldn't have window views?) into the depths of the lake, a lightness was penetrating which, if Draco squinted a bit, could be imagined as the pinkish flow of the coming Scotland dawn.

Damn. Just in the nick of time.

"Yeah, sure," he covered, letting out an entirely unfeigned yawn. "Just it always seems too early, doesn't it?"

Theo murmured his agreement.

Needless to say, Draco slept through History of Magic that day.

* * *

Harry breathed a huge sigh of relief.

After many days of pleading, Hagrid had finally accepted that Norbert, while wonderful in his (or her) own way, was not well suited to being a house pet, even for someone of the size and strength of the half giant.

The upshot was that they were getting rid of the dragon much more quickly than he had in his previous adventures. This may have been due to some of Norbert's smoky snorts setting fire first to Hagrid's beard (an incident which was shrugged off all too easily), and then his bedding (which proved much harder to ignore).

Or more accurately, it was Hermione who was much harder to ignore. At the first sign of fiery accidents, she'd become even more convinced that poor Norbert had to go. Harry noticed her hair had been _very_ well tied back ever since she'd seen how easily Hagrid's beard had gone up in flames, and after the bed incident her cries of "WOODEN - HOUSE!" had brought Hagrid round to her way of thinking. Harry's personal opinion was that Hagrid only agreed so easily due to how downbeat Norbert looked, which he thought in turn was down to how much noise his muggleborn friend was making, but it got the job done, so he wasn't about to start complaining.

Deciding what to do next was rather straightforward, as Harry had suggested the very same plan that they'd come up with the last time they were faced with the problem. A quickly written letter to Ron's brother Charlie (who, just as he had before, was working on a dragon preserve in Romania) was to be even more hastily sent, with memories of its previous interception still haunting Harry's mind.

Bearing in mind how ominously many of his previous experiences had shadowed their previous iterations (the troll and his spot on the Gryffindor Quidditch team came to mind), Harry thought it best to mix up a few of the finer details this time through. As loath as he was to admit it, the Astronomy Tower was still the best place for the handover, as there weren't many places at Hogwarts so accessible by broom and still reachable by two first years with a crated dragon in tow. The time, though, could be changed, and Harry pushed it back from midnight (as originally suggested) to one thirty in the morning. Hopefully, this would make the castle that much more abandoned, as teachers ended their patrols and ghosts returned to... wherever they rested during the night. Patrols were always less strict on weekends, too, so a Saturday should maximise their chances of passing unnoticed.

Planning the night out in the common room before breakfast - Ron was groaning about it, but there weren't many times they could plot together so uninterrupted and Harry was all too aware how Draco had followed them down to Hagrid's hut the last time he'd tried to do this. Given his suspicions over the blond's current behaviour, Harry wasn't planning on giving him any chances this time.

Harry felt a little chill run up his spine. _This was it_. Planning forbidden forays with his two best friends at his side - these were the days he loved, these were the days they'd looked back on most fondly. Perfectly innocent (the DMLE might not agree, but certainly in comparison to the dire days of the war against Voldemort), happy-go-lucky kids pushing the boundaries of what they could get away with to help out their friends. Life didn't get better than this.

It was almost a shame that he planned on them having much fewer of these events in the future. Most of the bonding had occurred during life-or-death experiences; as a responsible adult, with vital future knowledge and who loved his friends dearly, Harry would be doing his best to avoid scenarios just such as this. Would they recover the same camaraderie, the same depth friendship, the same instinctual trust they had built up in his previous memories?

"... Harry?" Hermione asked.

"Pardon?" he replied.

Hermione frowned. "I didn't say anything. You just looked like you were fading out there for a second."

"Of course he's bloody well fading," Ron complained, "we haven't even had a chance at breakfast yet."

With most of the discussion over, Ron's head was buried on his desk, his voice a low moan emanating from his mop of red hair.

"I'm fine." Harry reassured her, ignoring Ron for the moment. His mood would improve after food as always; it was particularly harsh of them to have him thinking before he could munch down any meals at all. "So we give the letter to Hedwig at breakfast, then wait to see if Charlie agrees?"

Hermione agreed, Ron murmured, and the three friends headed off to some thoroughly deserved bacon. Future adventures could wait; for now, they had their quest, and it was hardly going to prove dangerous, was it?

* * *

Draco glanced over his letter one last time.

 _Dear Cato,_

 _I write to you on a matter which requires some discretion..._

The hard part was done. The Acromantula were caught, subdued (eventually), and boxed up, ready to sit in the base he'd prepared for them at home over Christmas until he could sort things out in person over either Easter or the summer. All that was needed now was to get the spiders from Hogwarts in Scotland to Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire without attracting any more suspicion than he already had.

That required contacts, and contacts required money. Luckily, he'd planned this much in advance and he had drawn up a list of potential smugglers before he'd even returned to the past. Of course, as he'd never met any of them yet - at least not from their point of view - they wouldn't be loyal to him, but they were more than loyal enough to his coin, and his father had gifted him enough of a stipend that funds wouldn't be a problem. Some of the more traditional Malfoy sycophants might be cheaper, but they'd also be much more likely to tell his father about his scheme, and Draco wasn't quite ready for that.

Not yet, anyway.

So instead he'd written to a man he'd come to rely on a great deal upon his ascension to Malfoy Senior following the disgrace of his father after the Battle of Hogwarts (and it still rankled that he had only Potter to thank that he himself hadn't followed suit). Originally attracted by Cato's ability to keep his mouth shut when paid well enough, the two had fallen into an uneasy alliance of mutual respect, if not trust.

The promised sum would silence questions as to how an eleven-year-old boy had known to write to him (he wasn't exactly an easy man to find), and the task would be straightforward enough. Scanning through his writing, he double checked all the details were correct.

Collect two large boxes. The job was easy.

Pick them up from the top of the top of the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts. That would raise an eyebrow or two, but since it was used for stargazing, it was the most accessible tower that was both out of the way and open to the sky.

He'd buried enough veiled threats and promises to ensure he got the point that this was supposed to be secret. Even from my father, was the most expensive implication.

Deliver the crates to Malfoy Manor. Unfortunately, this was rather necessary information for any courier, legitimate or otherwise, and was the main reason Draco had signed it off with his real name. That said name was synonymous with wealth didn't hurt either.

And the pickup time? Two o'clock in the morning, this coming Saturday. The dead of night, and teachers were always less active on patrol duty on weekends; a combination of taking time off themselves and caring less about how functional the students were the morning afterwards.

Not quite foolproof, but nearly there. He sent the letter.


	15. Chapter 15: Smugglers

15\. Smugglers

It was about half past midnight by the time Draco realised that there was a fine difference between the theory behind smuggling two Acromantula off the Hogwarts grounds and the practice of actually doing so.

He didn't like it.

In theory, featherlight charms meant that the heavy boxes were easy to carry. In practice, while the spells worked on the boxes, they most definitely did not work on the Acromantula themselves, and they were _heavy_. Therefore Draco's concentration was nearly wholly spent on levitating the two crates with a single hovering charm, and he found himself very thankful of the extra practice he'd had with Crabbe and Goyle. His instinct would have been to shrink them - appealing images of him strolling up to the astronomy tower with his pets in his pocket came to mind - but he knew from his trials in the forest just how little the Acromantula were fond of that idea, and had no intention of shrinking the containers only to have very-much-not-shrunk giant spiders burst out of them.

The beasts were also supposed to be sleeping, given that Draco had put a powerful charm on them to do just that right before leaving for the tower. Unfortunately, either one of the creatures was a light sleeper, or she had a snore to wake a dragon, for the larger box vibrated furiously as he proceeded through the Hogwarts corridors. Draco didn't know which, as he'd silenced both crates, and was scared to unsilence them in case they really were snoring and woke up everyone else in the castle.

Yes, Draco was really coming to prefer the theory.

Over the years, Draco had come to know and love the Slytherin common room. It was a home away from home, a place where he could sit down with his dear friends and sycophants and grumble about how unfair the world was being about whatever happened to be vexing him at the time. But now, struggling under two enormous boxes, he lamented that for all its benefits, it was very far away. Really, the chances of him getting to the Astronomy tower without encountering professor, prefect, or Peeves were looking somewhat rather sketchy.

The other obstacle he'd had to overcome was that, large as they were, he couldn't fit both of the boxes and himself underneath his invisibility cloak. Due to his own small frame, he could just about squeeze under it with one of them, and he'd been forced to disillusion the other and have it floating along behind him. That, of course, meant that one of the items he was lifting was in the cloak with him while the other one was outside, making the spell just that bit more complicated. He also had to keep a keener eye out for nosy staff or poltergeists; disillusionment, while useful and (hopefully) sufficient in the dark corridors of night-time Hogwarts, provided a much lower level of invisibility than that provided by his cloak.

With all this to contend with, it took Draco one hour, two near run-ins with patrols, three bumps between crates and walls - one of the Acromantula was now definitely not asleep - and no less than four close escapes from fake stairs to reach the correct floor. After all, his concentration was divided and his knowledge of the castle wasn't what it used to be.

At least, that was what he would excuse himself with once it all started to go horribly, horribly wrong.

He had ascended the final flight of stairs, and was just about to settle himself and the boxes down for the wait to come. He'd told his couriers to arrive at two o'clock, which gave him a little over thirty minutes to sit patiently in the cold. Cursing idly to himself, Draco wondered whether he should use his cloak to cover the Acromantula crates and disillusion himself (the cloak reduced the odds of being seen, and as bad as it would be to get caught out of bed and out of bounds in the early hours of the morning, it would be far, far worse if the wrong person uncovered his little Care of Magical Creatures project) or cover himself with the cloak and disillusion the box (the air was cold and the cloak was warm).

Just as he decided that it wasn't worth disillusioning a second crate, a half dozen shadows shot out from the clouds far above. Following the shapes in the moonlight, Draco smiled. They were early. Finally, something was going his way for once.

The six flyers dismounted their broomsticks while landing on the tower in a slick display of showmanship that left Draco torn between admiring their skill and chastising them for not taking the night seriously. There were enough things that could go wrong without one of his couriers falling a hundred feet onto the Hogwarts broomshed, which was located immediately below them. Besides breaking the already fragile school broomsticks, the noise would wake half the castle.

The leader, a tall, blond man in the black robes appropriate for the night's work, smiled broadly at Draco and gestured to the un-disillusioned crate beside him.

"Hey, man, good night for flying, isn't it? Is that our little beasty?"

Draco frowned. That was no way to talk your boss, and while he was young, he was also paying these people. He knew he had taken his father's position a bit too seriously too often in the past (or rather his past-past), but surely the name 'Malfoy' commanded a bit more respect than that.

"If you are referring to the crate to my right, then that is indeed the item you've been requested to smuggle away tonight, yes." he drawled. It was time to demonstrate his maturity to them, which fortunately for the couriers involved displaying his firm grasp of the situation and not cursing them all off the top of the tower.

"Blimey, bit of a posh one, isn't he?" whispered one of the smugglers at the back in a voice Draco wasn't meant to hear. He seethed, but hesitated, wanting to let the man dig himself deeper into trouble before rounding on him. "Charlie owes us a drink or two for this, he does."

Wait. Charlie?

Stunned, Draco was helpless as the group's leader hushed his men, turned back to him, and continued talking.

"Right, the crate. So give it 'ere and we'll bring it back to Romania for you -"

Romania? He wanted the spiders in Wiltshire, not Romania.

"- and then he'll be back in the sanctuary with his own. All fair?"

"Er, um..." blindsided by the revelations, Draco was caught speechless. "I think you might have the wrong person?" he said meekly. Really, he hadn't been caught this dumbstruck since... well, since he was eleven.

"The wrong person?" the leader cried sceptically, "How've I got the wrong person? The Hogwarts Astronomy tower, collect the beasty, half past one in the morning? Is this a usual delivery slot?!"

Obviously, he couldn't see how there could be multiple deliveries using such an obscure meeting time and place. To be fair, Draco couldn't see it either, yet here they were. Astronomy tower, yes, beasts, yes, half past one...

"I said two o'clock!"

The courier was unimpressed. "It's half past one now."

Draco scoffed. "I know that, you dolt, I thought you were early."

But what other explanation could there be? Who could be stupid enough, brave enough, dumb enough, to try to smuggle class XXXXX creatures off Hogwarts grounds at one o'clock in the morning?

(Draco realised that this was exactly what he was doing, but he was different. He knew how to get away with it.)

The answer was blindingly obvious. Potter.

Memories - brief, dull, faded memories - tentatively surfaced, of another eleven-year-old Draco, who had nothing better to do than to spend his school years antagonising the Boy-Who-Lived. Many years ago, he had uncovered a plot by Potter and his usual fellow suspects to smuggle a dragon off the Hogwarts grounds. It had been perfect - get Potter, Weasley and Granger into trouble, while messing with Hagrid as well - until he had also been caught out of bed trying to catch them and shared the punishment.

It was times like this that Draco reflected his previous preteen self hadn't been particularly smart.

Intelligence of his actions aside, that particular adventure had happened about now. And they'd been trying to get the dragon to a Charlie Weasley...

Scratch the last thought; that particular adventure had happened exactly now.

Which meant that very soon...

"Er, well then, if you'd excuse me... gotta go!" Draco stuttered nervously.

He ducked back into the shadows, and swung the invisibility cloak over himself and the spare crate while the couriers muttered to themselves, astonished at his behaviour. He briefly thought about leaving the disillusioned crate where it was, but decided that if Potter got wind something was up, he'd search the tower top to bottom, and there was a good chance he'd blunder into the box. While the image of Potter getting eaten by a disillusioned Acromantula was undoubtedly funny, his untimely demise would warrant a closer investigation of the night's events than the secrecy of Draco's involvement could survive.

Plus, the brat would probably be important in vanishing that pesky Dark Lord problem Draco so dearly wanted gone, and for him to die now would be awfully inconvenient.

Now entirely invisible - the astonishment behind him had turned to general outcry - he plummeted down the narrow stairs as quickly as he could. The staircase as not wide for the crates to proceed two abreast, so he kept one tucked under the cloak with him as before, while the disillusioned box was floating in front of him, both kept moving by a hastily reapplied hovering charm. It was at the very bottom of the staircase - he had nearly made it! - that the unthinkable happened.

In the dim candlelight that half-illuminated the corridor, he saw his way out. Nothing but empty stone awaited him, and the shouts of the mysterious broomstick riders were well behind him. Racing, he finished the last of the stairs and ran into -

\- something.

The phrase 'he could trip over air' came to mind, but Draco had never been particularly clumsy, and there was a fine difference between simply falling over and in smashing into air in a way that sent all involved flying down the corridor. The Acromantula box in front of him crashed against the stone wall opposite the stairs, while Draco himself was sent into an uncomfortable roll along the paved floor. Two movements caught his eye, both blurred, both horrifying in their implications.

Draco muttered an expletive.

* * *

Before he was so rudely flattened by an invisible torpedo, Harry's evening had been going rather well.

Feigning headaches, himself, Ron and Hermione had gone to bed shortly after dinner. Well rested from the break, they had gathered under the invisibility cloak just before one o'clock in the Gryffindor common room, before heading onwards through the dark interior of the castle. They reached Hagrid's rendezvous not long after, and it was there Harry gave his first shudder.

He recognised the room; it was the very same one that had housed the Acromantula Aragog all those years ago, long before Harry's time. As a student, Hagrid had been very attached to his beloved pet, but the spider had then been accused of attacking students as part of the Chamber of Secrets fiasco, resulting in Aragog's banishment and Hagrid's expulsion. During Harry's second year, he'd proven Hagrid's innocence by slaying the real monster of the Chamber (a basilisk; in hindsight a giant snake was a much likelier candidate for the monster of Salazar Slytherin). Aragog's guilt or otherwise was harder to gauge. While he hadn't attacked students during the 1940s, he had attacked Harry and Ron when they asked him for assistance, leading Harry to believe that it was the lack of opportunity that stayed his aggression rather than any enlightened ideals.

Returning his concentration to the present (he had the entire summer to figure out his response to next year's crisis), he cautiously reached one arm out from under the cloak and knocked firmly on the door.

"C'mon in." came Hagrid's gruff whisper.

It was a good thing that, as a member of staff, Hagrid was allowed to wander around the castle at night. His size and temperament made him rather unsuitable for stealth work. In fact, Harry would have been quite happy for Hagrid to carry Norbert all the way up to the meeting point with Charlie's friends, except he'd be in big trouble if he was challenged (he had no method of invisibility, and wasn't particularly gifted at talking himself out of difficult situations), and Harry didn't fully trust him to give the dragon up and not simply run off with him (or her) into the night.

Did Harry trust Hagrid with his life? Yes. Did he trust him not to get cold feet over sending away "his cute little baby"? Not so much.

After many enormous tissues worth of bucket sized tears, they finally prised Hagrid from his pet and were only slightly late to the meet-up at the Astronomy Tower. The corridors were (not unexpectedly, at this hour of the morning) abandoned, and the three Gryffindors had little trouble traversing the castle to reach their destination.

Hermione was navigating, Ron was trying to hold Norbert steady, and Harry was keeping a watchful eye out for any prefects or poltergeists that might jump out at them. None appeared; even Peeves had been mercifully quiet this year, it seemed. All was calm. Deserted, even.

Their journey complete, they reached the foot of the last flight of stairs up to the ramparts of the Astronomy Tower. Voices came down from the roof above them; evidently Charlie's friends had arrived on the scene first. That was good, it meant they could get the handover done quickly and be off back to bed as soon as possible. Ideals span round Harry's head; minimise the possibility of getting caught, get as much rest as possible before the next day. It was all going about as well as could be expected.

Until, of course, an invisible missile ploughed into them from the direction of the stairs, and sent the three first years and their illicit cargo sprawling across the floor.

His first thought was that they'd been cursed. How, he wasn't sure, because they should have been invisible under both the cloak and the cover of darkness that sat across Hogwarts's hallowed halls. There were ways of detecting them, he knew - the Marauder's Map, for a start (this thought was quickly accompanied by a silent prayer that the Weasley twins weren't watching their exploits; it would take quite some explanation) - but none that were readily obvious or obtainable.

Any further ideas were cut off by the impact of his body against the far wall.

CRACK!

Groggily, he got to his feet. Checking himself over for injuries, he realised that the noise hadn't been any of his bones breaking, and as Ron and Hermione were moaning softly rather than screaming in agony, it wasn't one of them either.

So what had made the noise?

A shadowy movement caught his eye, and he saw something large scurrying away. Ignoring it for the moment, he stared back at the staircase he'd been so rudely knocked away from. Lying in front of it, was a foot.

Drawing his wand, he pressed it into where the torso should be if the foot really was a foot, leaving Ron and Hermione half-sitting, half-lying under his cloak. Sure enough, the wand burrowed into what felt like a ribcage. The body underneath him turned, angling its way out of his line of fire, and jumped to its feet just as Harry sent a stunner where it had been on the floor.

The two boys stopped, wands drawn, facing each other.

"Potter?" asked the all too familiar face across from him.

Harry was stunned.

"Malfoy?" he replied, gobsmacked.

The blond had a bruise across his chin, no doubt from the collision he'd caused on the staircase. At his feet was a box, half covered. That he couldn't see the other half, despite the moonlight illuminating the corridor, filled Harry with a very familiar sense of his life getting much more complicated.

"What are you doing here?" Ron asked emerging from the cloak.

Harry grimaced internally at how his friend had just revealed his presence. He had a lot of teaching to do on tactics and element of surprise before they made it much further.

"Weasley, what a shock." Malfoy exclaimed sarcastically. "I suppose Granger's under there too?"

A moment later, cover blown, Hermione stepped into the corridor. At least she had the sense to keep her wand pointed firmly at the Slytherin.

"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" Ron repeated, belatedly bringing his own wand to bear.

"None of your business." Malfoy snapped. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"None of your business." Harry replied.

"Exactly." Malfoy smirked. "Now how about you go upstairs and drop off whatever that thing is to the couriers who've just arrived. They're probably still muttering madly about a Charlie and Romania."

He stepped to the side to let them through, wand still aimed at Harry, seemingly unconcerned by the three other wands still tracing out his movements.

An angry snorting drew Harry's attention to the floor again. Two crates lay there; one, he recognised as the box they'd brought Norbert up in. The other was the one next to Malfoy, still half invisible, who was standing over it protectively. Apparently, Norbert wasn't fond of getting knocked and dropped, and faint wisps of smoke were floating up through the wooden planks.

"What's in your box?" Harry couldn't help but ask.

He was met by another smile.

"What's in yours?" came the infuriating reply.

Harry's Malfoy-radar was going crazy. Here he was, the culmination of all the oddities, the rule breaking, and the arrogance that had built up over the year. Sure, he'd done all those things before, but there was a menace, a purpose, to the boy this year, and it was driving him crazy that he couldn't figure out what it was. Before, Malfoy's sole role in life had simply been to be to make Harry's life as difficult as possible. Now, with that same energy put towards an unknown goal, which was quite clearly meant to be secretive (no one ended up out of bounds at two o'clock in the morning by chance, after all), he wasn't quite sure what to make of it. And yet none of the new evidence would stick because Harry wasn't exactly in a position to call anyone out in this situation either.

"So neither of us were here?" he asked.

The smile grew. "Neither of us were ever here. Now move, I think your handlers are getting impatient up there."

Itching to ask Malfoy more questions, but realising that this was neither the place nor the time to find any answers, Harry picked up the box with Ron and let Hermione lead the trio up the stairs and to the awaiting dragon handlers.

* * *

Watching the Gryffindors make the final ascent to the top of the tower, and sharing equally suspicion-filled glares as they made their way down again (sans-dragon), Draco let out a low sigh of relief. That... could have gone a lot worse, all things considered.

Sure, it meant the three would no doubt stalk him to the ends of the Earth in a furious effort to find out what he was up to, but given their track record they would probably blame him for anything that went wrong anyway. He might as well give them some actual misdemeanours to investigate. They did have had a reputation for getting their noses in all the wrong places, but they were still only first years. If they managed to uncover enough evidence to catch him, then he probably deserved everything that was coming for him.

More to the point, he knew what they were up to. The smoke emanating from the crate all but confirmed they were pulling the same trick as in his half-remembered memories; dragon smuggling. Meanwhile, he was up to something new, so they'd have to figure it out from scratch. The mystery only went one way, and he had a nice threat to hang over them should they stumble upon his secrets. They'd do anything to protect their half-giant.

Gryffindors. So bloody predictable.

He stopped to check the box at his feet, the one that had been under his cloak with him, was fine, and then started searching for the other one. After waving his hands around the air while on his knees (not a great look for the Malfoy heir to be caught in), he gave up and gave off a revealing charm that should cancel the disillusionment.

He found... splinters.

Draco swore, loudly, before remembering where he was. He couldn't draw attention to himself.

Then he started swearing quietly.

So _that_ was what that cracking sound had been. Draco looked around frantically for the spider, but the hallway was abandoned. Lying opposite the entrance to the tower, exactly where it would have landed, was the broken remains of his second crate.

It had scurried off.

This introduced some uncomfortable questions.

Obviously, for someone to see through a box, they had to be able to see through what was inside the box as well. Draco desperately tried to remember whether both crate and spider had been invisible, or whether disillusioning the container had been enough. Done correctly by a wizard like Flitwick or Dumbledore, an invisible box would automatically conceal anything within it - after all, that was how his beloved cloak worked. But invisibility spells were never Draco's forte, and it was quite possible he'd disillusioned the Acromantula as well.

So, the best case scenario was there was a visible giant spider wandering around Hogwarts. The worst case scenario was an invisible giant spider wandering around Hogwarts. Honestly, Draco wasn't sure there was much of a difference.

To most young wizards, this would constitute a problem, but Draco wasn't too fussed. He was pretty sure the spider would make its own way out as soon as it could, and return to its lovely, soft, forest without bothering any pesky humans. He was more annoyed that half his work had been for nothing.

Still, there wasn't much he could do about it; he certainly wasn't going to be pursuing an Acromantula around Hogwarts at two o'clock in the morning. Even if Potter hadn't put the teachers on alert (which, despite his claims of Gryffindor honour, was a distinct possibility), the ensuing fight would wake everyone up anyway.

At least he still had half his treasure intact. He once more levitated the remaining crate up the stairs, and once more reached the top of the Astronomy Tower. As before, he was just in time to watch several figures descend from the clouds on broomsticks.

"Cato's lot?" he asked.

He received a nod in reply. "Mr. Malfoy... half of us thought this was a wind up."

"Well, I'm just glad you decided to check it out anyway."

"With what you offered to pay us, so am I." The man grinned. "Is that the item?"

Draco nodded, and tossed over a rattling bag of change.

"You get the last third once I'm back from Hogwarts and check it arrived safely."

"As agreed." The man conceded graciously.

His companions hoisted up the crate, secured it to two spare broomsticks, and took to the air. Draco shook the leader's hand, wished him a safe flight, and stood there until they were long gone into the distance. Then he tucked himself under his cloak, closed the door behind him and descended the castle's depths into the Slytherin common room once more.

Really, aside from blasted Potter, it had all been rather straightforward. And wasn't that the story of his bloody life?


	16. Chapter 16: The Prize Awaits

16\. The Prize Awaits

The next month passed in a haze of caution and suspicion.

Both boys knew that the other was up to something; and yet neither could dump the other in trouble for it or their own exploits would be revealed as well.

Harry found this infuriating.

Part of the problem was that he genuinely had no idea why Draco had been up there. While the young Slytherin had been at the Astronomy Tower during Harry's previous experience of transferring Norbert to Romania, back then he had an obvious motive behind him - get the Gryffindors into trouble. Given that no teachers had arrived to remove all of Gryffindor's points from him, this time Harry clearly hadn't been given up to the professors as had happened before.

Which in turn meant that there was another reason for Draco to be out of bounds at two o'clock on a Saturday morning, and Harry was willing to bet the entire contents of his Gringott's vault that it wasn't an innocent one.

Everything seemed to be made worse by the smug grins he was getting from Draco whenever they crossed paths. Harry couldn't quite tell whether Draco knew what he had been up to that night - although he hadn't seen Draco spy on Hagrid's hut, that never meant it didn't happen - or whether the Slytherin was just gloating that Harry knew he'd broken major rules but couldn't do anything about it. It didn't really matter; it was getting Harry's temper up either way.

All the new complications were putting him on edge. With Draco's mysterious plan in place, Professor Quirrell's own bid for the Philosopher's Stone could change at any minute. Harry hasn't forgotten how the twins had revealed Draco's movements in the out of bounds area on the third floor corridor, or his trips into the Forbidden Forest. Every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Pigwidgeon's fluttering presence provided a stark reminder that things didn't have to turn out the way they had in the past.

(The owl still seemed oddly averse to staying in the Owlery, and much preferred food straight off Ron's plate - a practice the redhead eagerly encouraged).

He couldn't let his future knowledge become a crutch while the situation in front of him changed with the winds. Anything could happen, and where Voldemort was involved, _anything_ could be very bad indeed.

That meant they needed to be prepared. They needed proper training, a schedule, and a realisation that things were really serious.

Unfortunately, Harry wasn't the only one to hit on this train of thought.

"Here you go," Hermione stated imperiously as she handed her two best friends multi-coloured rolls of parchment. "I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier, I'm terribly sorry, we should have started this months ago..."

"Hermione," Ron interrupted, "What's this?"

Harry had a good idea of what 'this' was, and he was groaning internally at the sight of it. He'd thought he was done with this nonsense; he got the feeling that the warm nostalgia that accompanied it would very soon give way to irritation.

"This," Hermione replied, "is our revision schedule."

Ron looked up at her startled.

"But the exams aren't till after Easter!"

"They're only twelve weeks away, Ron!" an agitated Hermione retorted. "You do realise that if we fail these exams we don't get to come back to Hogwarts next year, right?"

Harry was fairly sure that this was a rumour encouraged by the professors to encourage everyone to work harder. After all, even Crabbe and Goyle had survived till seventh year - actually, Harry felt a bit guilty at that wording given the former's demise, but he'd do his best to ensure everyone survived past seventh year this time around. However, he was equally sure that he did not want to get into this argument now, and he definitely didn't want to risk Ron's work slipping to Crabbe-and-Goyle levels.

Unrolling the scroll, he saw that the schedule was indeed colour-coded by subject. The second thing he noticed was that, very soon, the three of them were going to have very little free time. While he didn't need to do much revision at all - after all, it was only first year material - he recognised that if he slacked off as much as he'd like to, Ron wouldn't do anything either, and Hermione would then be very cross with the both of them.

But still, with this timetable as their guide, they'd spend longer revising stuff than they'd spent on learning it in the first place.

"Okay, Hermione," he said, just as she and Ron looked as if their row would blow into a full-scale screaming contest, "we get it. Exams are important. But I think we can tone this down just a little bit."

"Ha!" said Ron.

"A _little_ bit." Harry repeated sternly, unimpressed.

With Hermione somewhat mollified, he continued.

"Besides, we may have bigger problems."

Hermione gasped, undoubtedly at the suggestion that anything could be more important than exams, but Harry pressed on before she could voice her concerns.

"We know Malfoy and someone else are both after the Philosopher's Stone. They've got to make their move before the end of the year; the teachers can't do anything too large while students are around, but over the summer, they could move the stone anywhere. Whoever's trying to steal it knows this - all their scouting over the year will be worthless if the stone is moved, so they'll be aiming to grab it soon. We can't let them get to it."

"But we can't just sit outside the bloody door all day." Ron replied.

"Dumbledore." Harry replied after a moment. "The key is Dumbledore. While he's around, no-one's going after the stone - even Voldemort was scared of him."

Cue flinching from his two friends.

"If the thief tries to steal the Stone, it's going to be when Dumbledore's out of the castle. That's when we need to be alert."

And so, with a slightly modified revision schedule that allowed for more breaks and a stronger emphasis on Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts, the plan was put in motion.

* * *

Luckily, despite the Boy-Who-Lived's best efforts, his remaining spider had made it to Malfoy Manor and was awaiting his return over the summer holidays, when he'd decide what exactly he was going to do with it between now and the outbreak of the war. But after the excitement of the night in the tower, Draco fell into a more mundane routine, and the world seemed - for the moment at least - to return to normal.

Spring passed into summer, and the days flew quickly by.

As students of all years fell into exam frenzy with varying degrees of panic, Draco had a harder job than most.

If you asked around Hogwarts, this would seem ridiculous. While it mightn't seem that way for the castle's youngest inhabitants, first year exams were widely acknowledged as the easiest of the lot. As the top of his year - or maybe one of the top three, if he was thinking slightly less boastfully, which he rarely did - the end of year tests shouldn't present any significant problems. And true, for him, they didn't.

However, he also had Crabbe and Goyle to encourage along, and what at first seemed like a challenging hobby had now become a full time job. Not that they were stupid - they had their moments, yes, but they'd had enough assistance throughout the year that they'd probably scrape a pass if he stopped helping them now. Despite this, they were still eleven, and Draco had never been the most patient of people.

"No, not vanishing, _banishing_!" he corrected one day. The exams were only a couple of weeks away, and everyone's tempers were getting short. The Quidditch season was nearly over - Gryffindor and Slytherin had won their matches against Ravenclaw, but nowhere near as handily as Slytherin had seen off Hufflepuff - and without that outlet, the pressure was only increasing. Draco himself was only keeping himself sane by feeding off the frustrated looks Potter gave him whenever he smirked at the brat across the corridors.

"The difference is..." Goyle started, but then found himself stumped.

"Vanishing something makes an object disappear, banishing it sends it flying away from you." Draco explained with a sigh.

"Oh."

Seeing the equally weary looks on his threes faces, Draco called for them to change to something different.

Ostensibly Defence Against the Dark Arts revision, he was running Crabbe and Goyle through a variety of basic defence exercises most suited to their temperaments. While before he'd focussed on precision, he now recognised that sometimes, a boy just needed to break something. They couldn't (and shouldn't) cast more powerful or difficult curses yet, but he still found enough that they could send light objects spinning through the air or knock small pieces of furniture over. The abandoned classroom he'd found for the purpose was suitably out of the way, and despite a few close run ins (most notably a very awkward encounter with Potter and his two followers) they'd stayed undetected by anyone with the power to stop them using it.

By the time exams rolled around, he was getting confident that they might both actually do themselves proud.

* * *

It was on the final day of exams that things started to go wrong.

The first sign of trouble was when Professor Quirrell, who was invigilating their Defence Against the Dark Arts exam, sat even twitchier than usual. Harry normally avoided looking at him as much as possible to spare himself the headaches but, having finished long before anyone other than Draco (Hermione was still frantically scribbling in ever tinier handwriting several seats in front of him), spent the last minutes of the test studying the turbaned professor.

When he'd announced the start of the exam, the first years noticed his stutter was worse than usual. His usual shifty demeanour had degraded into his face snapping upright every other moment, and his pale face was slick with sweat. When he called out the warning that there were only five minutes left, he spend so long stuttering that he used half of them just to get the words out.

Most students probably attributed this as a sign of nervousness. This was perfectly understandable given his position in a cursed professorship, when recent history taught them that there were only a few days left for his life to go very badly wrong indeed. After all, he'd very nearly made it through the entire year unscathed, and that simply wouldn't do. The curse would strike.

They were right, Harry reflected, but probably not in the way they were thinking.

Anyway, once the last quill had stopped scratching, they all bundled outside to enjoy what passed for summer this far north.

One afternoon. That's all the reprieve the three Gryffindors got between the end of their exams and hurtling headlong into the next adventure. One measly afternoon in the sun before they headed back inside for dinner and found Dumbledore's chair stood empty in the middle of the staff table.

The headmaster was missing, and Quirrell's earlier nervousness suddenly made a good deal more sense. It would be tonight.

Immediately after dinner, Harry went to his early warning system. He'd warned them that he might have an odd request for them in the near future, and while he knew he'd piqued their interest, true to form they stayed quiet until the time came.

He asked the Weasley twins to let him know when Quirrell left his office.

Ideally, he'd have plucked the Philosopher's Stone from it's not-so-secret hiding place long before Voldemort got anywhere near it. However, he wanted - no, needed - to force him out of his physical form before things got complicated. A corporal Dark Lord coexisting with the shade of Tom Riddle that Harry expected to be unleashed on the school next year? Or who could take advantage of the chaos following Sirius's escape? Harry needed events to follow the memories he had of his former life, and for that to happen Voldemort needed to be not just denied, but destroyed.

This in turn meant that he'd have to confront Voldemort down underneath the third floor corridor, where opportunities for escape or collateral damage were strictly limited. Harry didn't want to enter before him, and risk either facing a challenge at his front and Voldemort at his back, or Quirrell coming across Ron and Hermione should he have to leave them behind at any stage.

The unfortunate conclusion was that he was going to have to let Voldemort reach the Prize first.

Sure enough, a half confused, half amazed Fred and George Weasley came up to them in the common room early that night and revealed that Quirrell was on his way to the third floor corridor. Pushing aside the twins' none-too-subtle questions as to how he'd known that would happen, he, Ron, and Hermione looked at each other and knew what had to be done.

He gave them the statutory last chance to back out now, but knew they'd never take it. While he should have been worried, frightened for them even, a part of him was glad. This was their adventure, and Harry knew he couldn't take it away from them. Even if he did know what they were about to face. Even if he was much older, possibly wiser, and far more battle-hardened than them. They were a team, and it was time for them to save the world for the first time together. It was a chance to rebuild that instinctual trust he'd so missed over the past year.

After all, they'd done fine the first time around, and why should this attempt be any different?

* * *

It was time. Exams were finished, Dumbledore was out of the castle, and there would be no better moment to snatch the Philosopher's Stone.

He stood in the middle of a deserted common room. The younger years were fast asleep, and those older students risking curfew would keep themselves occupied for another couple of hours yet. His equipment, long since pre-prepared, was either already worn or laid out on a sofa, ready to be stuffed into pockets.

His wand, which he kept on him at all times anyway. A bezoar, because only a fool wouldn't be prepared for poison when so many of them were so easy to mitigate. A fine silk shirt, which would be easy to cut away in case of a flesh wound and would minimise infections or the chance of an unfortunate reaction to dark spells. And of course his cloak, waiting to be slung over his shoulders and render him invisible to any guards.

Just as Draco was about to leave, a squeak from behind stopped him. Stuffing his invisibility cloak back into his pocket (it would be worse to try and hide and have someone catch him disappearing - it wasn't actually against any rules to be in your own common room, despite the hour), he turned to watch whoever had come to join him.

The door to his own dormitory creeped open behind him, and two figures followed him into the common room.

"Draco?" The first one asked.

It was Crabbe.

"What are you two doing up at this hour?" Draco asked.

Crabbe and Goyle gave him a look, which he probably deserved. After all, it wasn't as if he had a reason to be standing fully dressed at the common room exit either.

"We heard you get up." Crabbe replied.

"So we wanted to see where you were going." added Goyle.

Draco wondered what the two would think if he explained that he planned to steal the key to immortality and eternal wealth right out from under Dumbledore's crooked nose. The Crabbe and Goyle he'd grown up with, the unthinking minions, would probably just have grunted and got on with it. The two boys standing across from him, however, sounded slightly more attentive.

Attentive, but not suspicious.

"I'm just going out for a bit. I've a job that needs sorting before the morning." There. The truth, but not enough to give anything away.

The shadowy lumps shifted in the low light of the dying common room fire. They either trusted him enough that they didn't ask about curfew, or the idea hasn't crossed their minds, for which Draco was thankful. He didn't particularly want to have to make excuses before he'd even started.

"Just... stay here, or better yet, go back to bed." Draco encouraged. "It won't take too long, it can't be that difficult..." he muttered off, speaking slightly to himself towards the end.

Because where Dumbledore was involved, things could get very difficult.

Apparently, they picked up on his hesitation, because it gave them ideas.

"We want to help."

Draco paused. Well that was... unexpected.

"Thanks, but I'm fine on my own. I wouldn't want to keep you up."

The shear hilarity of bringing two of Hogwarts's most infamous blundering eleven year olds on a stealth mission to steal Britain's most valuable object made him chuckle.

"We've done the spells you said. And you've given us all that extra homework before the exams. We want to help, and we can help." Crabbe protested.

Goyle grunted his agreement.

While his fellow first years had improved leaps and bounds over their old selves, they would still be nothing more than a hindrance. Even if he didn't have to hide his advanced abilities from them - they'd been exposed to him showing off all year, after all - keeping his two shadows alive through whatever Dumbledore had protected the Stone with would be a complication he didn't have time for. He pushed past the pair of them, and made his way to the door, ordering behind him as he went.

"No, I want you to stay here, Crabbe."

"Vincent."

Draco stopped.

"Everyone else calls us Crabbe 'n' Goyle. But they don't care, do they?" Crabbe said.

Slowly, he turned back to his companions.

"You gave us all the help all through the year," Crabbe continued, "when everyone else laughed at us. You told us we could actually do stuff. We know all the spells, the concentration, the wand movements. You taught them to us. Now we want to help you back."

A pause.

"Gregory." was all Goyle added.

For some reason, Draco found himself smiling ear to ear, a smile that seemed to reach from his mouth to the depths of his very soul. An odd feeling tingled its way through his limbs at Crabbe's words, leaving a warm glow in its wake. He'd regret this, he knew; it would be far more straightforward to petrify the boys and continue as planned on his own. Even without his improved skills, he wouldn't have thought to bring the pair along as anything more than a distraction. But somehow, he couldn't bring himself to disagree.

"Well then, Vincent, Gregory, we'd best hurry along."

Draco tried to rationalise his about-turn - there would be less suspicion over him individually, he could always ditch them once the going got tough - but somehow he knew those reasons had nothing to do with it.

He'd envied Potter his friends more than anything in the world, from his lonely, isolated position first in Slytherin and then as a Death Eater. And now he had a chance, a rare, fleeting chance, to forge bonds of his own. A chance that, he knew from bitter experience, might not come again.

The trio headed out the common room door on their first proper adventure.

"And call me Draco."

* * *

 _A/N: Sorry for the delay, next one should be on time. As you see, we're not too far from the end now. If you see other stories come out of me, don't worry; they're short, and I only write them when I'm stuck on this one, so they won't detract from or delay it. This is my main priority writing wise._

 _On another note, what do you guys think of the story "photo"? It's not much but I thought something was better than nothing. Do you pay attention to the images while picking stories to read?_

 _Thanks for reading, please review!_


	17. Chapter 17: A Long Overdue Duel

17\. A Long Overdue Duel

First, there was some warbled lyrics from Goyle that had, despite a dubious Draco's doubts, managed to both put the Cerberus to sleep and wake up anything else on or near the third floor. Then some panicked fire from Crabbe had cleared a path through Devil's Snare, before Draco captured a winged key that looked as though it had been grabbed and jammed in the keyhole to the next door many times before (and was all the easier to catch for it). So far, so good.

The three Slytherins then reached what appeared to be a giant chessboard. Their suspicions were confirmed when they saw most of the pieces helping each other up off the floor at the side of the room. Evidently, they were not the first ones here this evening, and their prey couldn't be too far ahead. Having neither the time nor the inclination to play through a match, Draco lead his fellow first years on a mad dash across the hall, hoping to make a quick escape while their opponents were distracted and out of position.

The chessmen were none too amused, and chased after them.

Turning to cover his two companions, Draco shot a disarming spell at the nearest piece, a white knight. The scarlet light hit the horseman straight in the chest, knocking rider and mount back to the wall from whence they came. The flying marble took out several pawns that were entering the fray, and the knight's sword flew through the air towards Draco. Catching the weapon by the hilt - and thanking Merlin that it had come at him handle-first - the pale wizard swung it in a low parry to block out a black bishop's attack with his left hand - the bishops were armed with mighty warhammers, and the shock of the blow ran up his arm, but he held on - while using his right to launch a stunner that took off its head, pointed hat and all.

The other pieces converged on the three boys, angry expressions on their faces as they tapped whatever weapons they were holding against their palms. In hindsight, it might have been easier just to play the damn game.

"Run!" shouted Draco.

Crabbe and Goyle spun around to flee through the open door to the next room, mercifully left open by whoever had passed through before them. Draco didn't think it would unlock again without another match being played. He held out his wand, shielding silently, and stepped cautiously backwards as the irate infantry beat against the blue dome. Finally passing beyond the threshold, he slammed the door shut with the help of his friends, and breathed a sigh of relief. They had made it, with no damage done other than being subjected to Goyle's singing.

"And what, exactly, are you doing here?"

The voice behind them was full of suspicion, and Draco turned around slowly to find a wand within a foot of his face.

A wand held by one Hermione Granger.

The situation was so ridiculous that Draco snorted, which caused a twitchy Hermione to shoot a spell at him.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

Draco caught the spell on the blade of his new sword, backing up as he did so. While the spell was basic, it would incapacitate him as surely as any more advanced curse. He'd never live it down if he got himself taken out by a twelve year old girl, even if no-one knew his real age.

"Woah, hold up! We're friendly!"

This earned him an extremely sceptical look, but bought him enough time to gaze around the room he'd stumbled into. They were in a large, empty antechamber, with tall, arching stonework above each wall but no other features save the door he had passed through and the one ahead of him. Quite what the challenge in here was supposed to be, he couldn't figure out, but kept aware anyway. Getting to the stone wasn't going to be easy.

Crabbe and Goyle were stood still beside him, hands inching slowly towards their wands.

"Stop moving!"

Predictably enough, Ron was beside Hermione, and was pointing his wand menacingly towards the Slytherin first years.

"I suppose Potter has gone on to the stone alone, then? How noble of him." Draco sneered.

"That's no concern of yours." Hermione countered, an aggressive glare still resting across her face.

He really didn't have time for this.

"Vincent, Gregory," he said, "take them out."

Crabbe charged at Weasley, who hit him with a tripping jinx. The Slytherin's bulk and momentum, however, was easily capable of carrying him on to his opponent, and the two boys went down in a pile of fists. Draco ducked under another spell from Granger that came far too close for comfort, as Goyle hit her with a tickling charm. Cackling manically in a way that sent shivers down Draco's spine, she alternated between trying to counter the spell on her and shoot more off at her aggressor.

Leaving the combined supporting cast to sort out their differences behind him, Draco passed through into the next room.

It was a long table, with seven differently-shaped cups lined along it. Five were in a straight line, one was at the edge facing him and the last one, the smallest, was perched precariously on the far end. As soon as he had taken note of this, towering walls of flame blocked both the entrance he had come through and the door to the final chamber. And the final room it would be, for this was surely Snape's challenge, and Dumbledore would trust only his own enchantments before those of his Potions Professor.

On the table, nestled amongst the goblets, was a piece of parchment. A riddle. By a stroke of good luck, it was an pre-solved riddle; around the edges of the paper were scrawled the workings of the solution in what he recognised as Granger's impeccably neat handwriting. A quick glance revealed he should drink from the goblet on the far end.

Trusting from the bezoar in his pocket, and the lack of anyone dying an agonising death around him, that nothing too bad could happen if he followed Granger's suggestions, Draco began to prepare himself. He transfigured his new sword from marble to fine steel, and shrunk enough that he could drop it in his pocket. He then took his invisibility cloak out of that same pocket, swung it around his neck, and stood, undetectable, before the door onwards. Readying his wand, he gulped down the pitiful remnants of his chosen cup and hurried through to the final room.

No sooner had the cold twisting of his insides started than it stopped, just as suddenly; there had been no more than half a dose left. But the split second was all Draco needed to escape the flames, and he arrived at the final challenge, just in time to see his Defence Professor remove his turban and unleash Voldemort's grisly visage.

* * *

For the scene of a potentially world-ending disaster, Harry's evening was going rather well.

They'd arrived at the third floor corridor safely, avoiding any prefects or staff (the most terrifying of which would be Quirrell himself, but any sufficiently suspicious professor would make their trip much harder than need be).

The obstacles past the forbidden door had been exactly as he'd anticipated, and had proven no problem to the three adventurers. He'd sorted out the Cerberus, the Devil's Snare, and the flying keys. Ron had played through a rather bloody chess game (everyone made it through this time, as he'd suggested Ron be the king. After all, if he was lost, they had no hope anyway, so might as well make him the piece that couldn't lose), and the troll in the next chamber was nowhere to be found (Harry shuddered at what Quirrell might have done with it).

A riddle completed by Hermione, a dash of potion, and some heroics in convincing Ron and Hermione to get help rather than follow him, all meant that by the time Harry reached the final battle with the errant Defence teacher, he was feeling rather good.

And now, he faced off once more against Voldemort's spirit, hosted inside the recently-unwrapped turban of Professor Quirrell.

"Potter!" the face spat.

"Riddle." Harry replied, smirking.

He knew it was a bad idea, bating Voldemort like this. For all he knew, Dumbledore could be on his way here even now. Prolonging the fight between them would work to his advantage.

But Voldemort had ruined one of Harry's childhood's already, and after everything he'd been through he deserved the satisfaction of spitting the tyrant's true name back in his face. And as the Dark Lord flinched at the sound of only a name... it was worth it.

"Come here, boy!"

Harry obliged. Despite the fact that he'd been here before, despite that he knew he shouldn't be in any danger, his heart was pounding. The heated agony in his forehead only grew as he approached his arch-enemy, but he roughed it out, determined not to display any sign of pain in front of the man who had murdered his parents.

He wanted the Philosopher's Stone. To feel that final validation, the physical manifestation of the year's work.

He knew it shouldn't make a difference, that Dumbledore would have it destroyed either way, and that if anything the ruby was probably safer inside its current home inside the Mirror of Erised that stood as the only company to the pair of wizards in the empty chamber. The mirror which showed your heart's desire, and presumably, if Dumbledore used the same ingenious defence he did last time, only someone who wanted the Stone, but not to use it, would be able to access it. And that summed up Harry's intentions rather nicely.

Harry pondered whether he should double-check some of these little details upon which the future of magical Britain relied before heading into life-or-Death scenarios, but it was a bit late for that now.

As if in a dream, the scene played out like clockwork, just as he remembered. Voldemort's monologue, the Philosopher's Stone falling into Harry's pocket, the terrible, terrible pain that racked his entire body as Quirrell grabbed his face in a final, desperate bid for victory. Oddly, the extreme sense of deja-vu helped stem the pain, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was feeling was real and not a horrible dream. He'd forgotten, in ten years of nostalgic reflection of a youth spent defeating Voldemort, quite how much suffering accompanied each triumph.

He was spared unconsciousness this time. Quirrell burned while Voldemort fled, and Harry was left with a husk of a Defence professor, a priceless artefact, and an acute longing to rest.

A fog descended on his mind. He'd done it. Again. The Philosopher's Stone was safe, Voldemort was gone. The throbbing in his forehead was starting to subside and his heavy limbs swayed softly, their energy almost spent.

Unfortunately, he wasn't quite finished.

* * *

The Dark Lord was back.

A wraith, a spirit, cursed to a half-life and with less control of his fate than even the lowliest of rats, but he was back.

He had been teaching at Hogwarts for an entire year, and the only one who had noticed anything unusual was Potter. Who was in himself unusual, even by the standards of the old war hero Draco had left behind.

The boy was weakened by whatever fire had proven the bane of Quirrell, and looked on the verge of passing out. But in his pocket lay the Philosopher's Stone, that Draco had scarce dared believe to be real, never mind so close, and at that moment he did not wonder how Potter had found it when the Dark Lord himself had not, but only that it was now in reach.

That stone could be the answer to everything. It could provide enough gold that no matter what path the Malfoy fortunes took after the war, he would maintain their standing amongst the richest families in Britain. And it's elixir...

The Elixir of Life would provide immortality, but that was not what Draco was thinking of, transfixed by the stone clutched in Potter's grasp. At that moment, he was not thinking of extending life past its natural limits, but towards them. He was drawn not to the promise of a long life, but the prevention of a premature death.

With the power of the Philosopher's Stone, he could banish the curse they so feared before embarking on the journey to the veil. With the Elixir of Life, he could cure Astoria.

All he had to do was get it off Potter. Dumbledore would be powerless; Draco had already completed one Hogwarts education and didn't need another. If memory charms or lack of proof kept him from punishment, it would be so much the better. The dream of sitting out the war, in comfort and quiet and everlasting good health, would be child's play, regardless of the choices of his father. Himself and Astoria. They could disappear altogether, or they could raise an army of mercenaries to intervene for either side. They could sit out of normal life, or they could bribe their way to political dominance. They could reforge the future in their own image, effortlessly. All he had to do was get the damn stone off Potter.

Taking one last deep breath, he took off the invisibility cloak and confronted his foe. It was time.

"Give me the stone, Potter."

* * *

"Give me the stone, Potter."

Harry was dazed, burned, and outright exhausted, but somehow his legs found the energy to jump in shock at the sudden voice. Standing there, in the very chamber, wand drawn and pointed at his head, stood Draco Malfoy.

Harry hadn't heard him enter, so either he'd passed out or otherwise lost his senses (a very reasonable possibility, given his current condition), or Draco had entered while he was distracted by his confrontation with Quirrell. He didn't know which one scared him more; that he was about to collapse and surrender custody of the Philosopher's Stone, or that Draco was powerful enough to go unnoticed by Voldemort himself during the previous fight.

Or maybe, he finished grimly, Voldemort was aware Draco was there, and now he's about to finish the job. The Dark Lord had already possessed one Hogwarts inhabitant this year.

"No."

The sound was clear and defiant. It took Harry a moment to recognise that it was a word, and another two to realise he had spoken.

Despite himself, despite Draco, despite the whole bloody situation, he grinned. Saving the day really was ingrained into his subconscious.

Draco sighed. "You always did have to play the hero, Potter. Do you really believe you can stop me taking it? You're dead on your feet. Now, before I stop playing nice, hand - the stone - over."

"Never. Ferret." Harry spat.

He didn't quite know why he called Draco a ferret; it had been many years since Mad-Eye Moody (or an imposter thereof) transfigured the blond into one to teach him a lesson about cursing people in the back. As it hadn't happened yet this timeline, Draco had no reason to flinch, but he did so anyway, before he crouched into a duelling position.

For that matter, why was Draco playing nice? He'd never hesitated to hex Harry in the back before, why stop now?

"Very well." Draco sighed. "Your bravery is admirable, but I won't deny I've been looking forward to this for a long time."

A pause.

"EXPELLIARMUS!"

Harry twisted out of the way just in time, and he could feel the heat on his cheek as the light shot by him. Completing his turn, he took two more backwards steps, and took up his own stance.

The two stood face to face, a mere dozen metres separating them, wands in hand and spells on lips. Sparing a glance at Draco's feet, Harry noted his opponent had taken the formal stance beloved by duellists everywhere, while Harry's legs took the position favoured by the Auror corps who saw actual combat. As an ex-Auror himself (as he supposed he must be considered now), he saw in that an advantage.

But, a cruel voice - his own - whispered in his ear, this is a one-on-one fight in a clearly defined area. The scenario favours the duellist.

Shrugging his misgivings aside, Harry continued watching. Draco had been taught well, his footwork near impeccable. His tutor must have been quite the fighter. A large expense, for an eleven-year-old, but if anyone could afford it, it would be the Malfoys. The alternative - that Draco had been possessed by a mighty wizard rather than trained by one - was too dire.

But why else is he here? the voice continued to whisper. How does he know about this room, the tasks, the Stone? Why does he care?

"Your reflexes are impressive. Quidditch, I assume?"

Another voice - Draco's, out loud - caught him by surprise, and Harry realised he was referring to the speed of his turn. Actually, Harry's fighting reflexes, while naturally strong anyway, had been mostly honed in three years of brutal Auror training and seven in the field, but if Draco could ascribe them to Quidditch, so much the better.

"Better than you," Harry retorted, "if last November's anything to go by."

For the first time, the smile slipped, and Draco took a step closer. Harry barely had a second to congratulate himself on winning the skirmish of the taunts before the proper battle commenced.

Draco attacked first. His tactics changed; rather than the loud shout he had opened with to put the opponent off balance, he was now firing in hushed whispers so quiet that, if Harry didn't believe it impossible of a first year, he would have called it silent casting. His spells, too, began to change; more disarming spells, a jelly-legs jinx or two, a few of the more dangerous schoolyard hexes. Harry avoided them all, either by stepping out of the way or returning a counter-charm to intercept them. But dodging could only work so long; Draco was becoming more accurate, Harry's tired steps were slowing, and every spell spun closer to him than the last.

A beam of red came straight at his chest. No time to dodge -

"PROTEGO!" Harry roared.

The shimmering blue shield flickered to life in the nick of time, and the stunner dissipated on its ethereal energy. The two combatants stared at each other - Harry surprised by the stunner, and how close he'd come to defeat, Draco no doubt shocked at the strength of Harry's shield charm - before the fighting continued.

A dozen spells were exchanged and dispelled before the mistake came.

Harry, exhausted, had been pushed back, and Draco began a barrage to which he had no answer. He blocked stunners, avoided disarmers, but as his reactions slowed, so did his responses. A petrifying spell - much faster than a stunner, and while it was easy to block in terms of how strong a shield was needed, Harry's lagging limbs could not swipe up in time - caught his abdomen, and he froze, hand still clenched about his wand, as he toppled over.

* * *

Finally, Potter had collapsed in front of him. Draco strode forwards, covering the distance quickly, and bent over the frozen body of his oldest rival, hardly daring to believe that he had won. Two emerald eyes stared back, powerless to stop him. Victory was his.

He briefly wondered whether he should obliviate the boy or not. Removing his memories would allow Draco to stay at Hogwarts, would remove all suspicion; everyone would think that Voldemort had taken the Philosopher's Stone. For Draco, it would be the perfect crime...

But no. A wizard as skilled as Dumbledore would surely realise what had happened, and would just as surely prove able to remove the charm eventually. At that time, Draco would be vulnerable, in Hogwarts, his enemy's domain, and would only have succeeding in perfectly trapping himself. Powerful enough obliviations could be irreversible, but he had no particular appetite to blast Potter's personality from existence (irritating though he might prove to be). Besides, pinning the blame on Voldemort would be 'crying wolf' before his actual return, and there had been enough difficulty proving to the wider wizarding community that the Dark Lord was back the last time around. He needed Dumbledore to win the war; depriving him of his reputation and his golden boy this early would be too big a deviation from the previous course of history to risk.

He would take the Philosopher's Stone, he would disappear, and in time, he would emerge again to lead the world long after Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort were dead or redundant.

A smooth breeze ran through the room.

Draco paused as the air tickled at his skin. They were deep underground, through a half dozen sealed chambers, and the nearest window was outside the third floor corridor on the other side of the Cerberus's prison. Even if he hadn't been so innately suspicious, anyone could have guessed this was not normal. Or natural...

The breeze became a rush, and the whistling wind whipped itself into a roar, punctured only by a high avian cry. The atmosphere grew oppressive, and Draco hunched down beside his fallen foe in a bid to stop himself getting blown off his feet.

But as suddenly and mysteriously as the storm had started, it stilled. A bright light blinded him before returning in a flash, and Draco turned in horror to the pillar of fire in the centre of the room.

There, amongst the phoenix flame, stood an angry Albus Dumbledore.

Throughout his time at Hogwarts, Draco had thought the headmaster a fool; a dangerous fool, if improperly provoked, but a fool nonetheless. He was, of course, aware that the man delighted in promoting this mask of oddity to downplay his own significance, but it was demeaning and embarrassing for a wizard of such renown to behave so badly. He had believed that any truly powerful warlock would not debase themselves to such frivolity, and that maintaining the facade was a sign only of weakness, that if Dumbledore was really so strong he would not, could not, bring himself to stoop so low.

Not any more.

The man in the centre of the room had not welcomed them at the start of the year with nitwit, blubber, oddment or tweak. His eyes did not twinkle, and he looked anything but grandfatherly. Instead, there stood the legendary warlock, the vanquisher of Grindelwald, the one man Voldemort had ever truly feared.

For the first time, Draco understood the reverence with which those who had fought by Dumbledore's side spoke of his actions in the first war, and why those same Death Eaters who spoke of his frailties with such great bravado in front of the Dark Lord flinched at his the very mention of his presence on the battlefield when alone. There was a cold fury in every line of the ancient face; the heat of the fire radiated from Dumbledore as if he and his phoenix were one and the same.

The Supreme Mugwump raised his wand - the elder wand - and there was nothing Draco could do but hope that the headmaster was merely aiming to incapacitate him, and not blast him into a million pieces and then burn those pieces into flecks of finely powdered ash. Surrender crossed his mind, but before he had the chance, the Chief Warlock was upon him.

Under the circumstances, Draco thought he acquitted himself well. With no time to ready his wand or steady his nerves, he could only raise a frantic shield which buckled under the opening barrage.

Not an ageing schoolteacher or an obsolete fool. This was the wizard who had duelled the Dark Lord to a standstill in the Ministry of Magic, and then orchestrated his foe's downfall even beyond his own death.

His shield shattered, and Draco fled backwards in an attempt to put more ground between himself and Dumbledore. The old lessons came back to him, lessons from his father and the many duellists he'd learned from through private study or his time in the Death Eaters.

Make sure to keep your distance. It gives you more time to react to your opponent, makes you harder to hit, allows more spells to be dodged.

Even in his old age, Dumbledore's instincts and reflexes were far above Draco's, so he focussed on maintaining as large a distance as possible. Unfortunately, in the cramped confines of the chamber, that was nowhere near as far as he would have liked.

Remember to attack, even if you are outclassed. If your opponent doesn't have to deal with any threats from you, he can come at you however he likes. There is nothing to stop him advancing, nothing to interrupt his spell combinations. Put him off balance! Force him into caution!

And so, despite feeling truly outmatched, Draco took a sudden step forwards and unleashed a stunner and two dark carving curses - he didn't want to provoke Dumbledore into killing him, but neither did he think a simple Diffindo was going cut it. The headmaster was not put out by this, ducking one spell and giving a complicated wave of his wand that caused the other two to arc away from him, but it did check his advance.

What was the end game? All thoughts of the Stone were forgotten; he needed to get out of Hogwarts as soon as possible. Forget the future, forget his plans; he needed to return to the safety of Malfoy Manor before Dumbledore violently eviscerated him. Overpowering Dumbledore would be impossible, and the old wizard did not seem to be in the mood to talk. Grudgingly, Draco could understand why; he had walked into a room where the Philosopher's Stone was hidden, where Lord Voldemort was known to have been, and seen his Chosen One lying unconscious on the floor with the Slytherin son of a known Death Eater standing over him. Too late, Draco realised that by keeping Dumbledore at bay, he had revealed his talents beyond anything ever managed by a first year; for all the headmaster knew, Draco could have been possessed by the Dark Lord himself. Belatedly, he understood that pleading innocence would have been the better option. By this stage, surrender or capture would lead to Draco having to explain the circumstances, and that would mean the truth.

And that, would lead to the ruination of everything he hoped to accomplish.

In the meantime, Dumbledore had resumed his aggression, and Draco was struggling to stay on his feet beneath the pressure. Throwing down his wand suddenly looked very tempting, except Draco recognised enough of the hexes coming at him to doubt whether he'd survive long enough to hear it clatter on the floor. Instead, he shielded, dodged, and retreated, chased around the mirror, the prone body of Potter, and the pillar of fire which stayed burning in the room's centre, bathing the combatants in heat and light.

How long had they duelled? Sweat poured from his brow, his usually sleek hair a sodden mop more worthy of the Potter line than his own, and his robes clung to his limbs as if he had run through a storm. It felt like hours, but could only have been a couple of minutes; how much longer could he keep the mighty Dumbledore at bay?

Not long. The spells off Dumbledore's wand were coming closer; the brickwork behind Draco rattled and flaked as spellfire barely missed him, he was lucky to dodge, never mind block. He was nearly jogging backwards now, his pursuer following relentlessly. Once, Draco had thought that, if he had sufficient space to retreat into, he would have been able to hold off any opponent almost indefinitely. But despite his increasingly frantic withdrawals, despite declining every invitation Dumbledore made in an attempt to coax him into a trap with a carefully crafted feint, despite focussing purely on simply surviving and making only token efforts to strike back, he knew his time was running short. He needed to finish this, one way or another, before Dumbledore finished it for him.

The chance appeared. Draco changed direction, from jogging backwards to charging forwards. The sudden threat seemed to startle the headmaster, and Draco leapt over a much more dangerous variation of the tripping jinx aimed at his legs and prepared to attack. He launched a stunner at Dumbledore's midriff, but pulled out at the last moment. The move weakened the spell to the point of uselessness, but as Dumbledore moved to block it anyway, it gave him time to launch a cutting curse straight at at his headmaster's face.

Dumbledore turned out of the way, whipping his head round to the side.

But not fast enough.

The spell grazed his cheek, and a wafer thin line of red appeared across the otherwise pale skin.

As a single drop of blood rolled down towards the headmaster's chin, Draco charged for the exit. The ethereal fire that had barred the way from the previous room did not harm him - it couldn't do, there was no other way out from the final chamber - and reaching Snape's challenge, he grabbed the cup that would let him pass safely back through the traps. Gulping it down, he fled through the flames, taking the goblet with him to slow Dumbledore's pursuit. Slow, but not stop; he wasn't so naive as to think the headmaster couldn't reach any part of his castle as required.

He found himself in the chamber where he had left Crabbe and Goyle.

Goyle and Weasley were rolling on the stone floor, entwined with each other. One of Goyle's hands was pulling at Weasley's hair, while the other punched at his arm. In turn, Weasley appeared to be trying his best to throttle Goyle, but seemed unable to fit his hands around the other wizard's beefy neck. Both wands lay forgotten on the floor, nearly half the room away from the combatants.

Meanwhile, at his other side, Granger and Crabbe were similarly engaged. These two, however, seemed to remember that they did in fact have access to magic, and that a combat situation might be an excellent chance to use it. Granger had evidently managed to counter the tickling charm on her from the opening barrage (at least she was no longer giving her best impression of Draco's mad aunt Bellatrix), but her bushy mane was now a stunning light blue, and her wand arm was flappy, rubbery, and quite useless. Meanwhile, Crabbe had been hit with a leg-locking jinx, but as he had never been particularly mobile in the first place, this didn't seem to bother him; he hopped around, twisting past the hexes Granger continued to throw at him with her non-dominant hand, before falling over and rolling out of the way. As far as Draco could tell, he had been like this for quite some time, as he immediately sprang up again to continue his hopping with a fluidity that almost certainly had required much practice. Draco was almost impressed.

Now was not the moment to watch his underlings do battle, however, for he had no doubt that Dumbledore was in hot pursuit. He gave them one last look - if this stunt got him expelled, what would happen to Crabbe and Goyle? Would they continue their improvement without his tutelage? - and was surprised to find himself saddened by the knowledge he mightn't see them again. Sure, their fathers would keep in contact, but depending on the severity of the consequences, Draco himself might be on the run for quite some time, whether from Dumbledore, the Department for Magical Law Enforcement, or simply his father's displeasure.

There was nothing to be done for it now, however. He crossed the room at a run, opened the door, and kept running. What was the guardian of this next room, again?

Something heavy went into his forehead.

Oh, the chess pieces, his mind informed him, dazed though it was by the force of the bishop's blow. Should probably look out for them.

The black bishop - the partner of the one Draco had beheaded so short a time ago - looked smugly at him, weapon in hand, as the boy dropped to the floor.

Otherwise we might get a marble mallet to the head.

The voice in his head whispered one final expletive, and then Draco knew no more.


	18. Chapter 18: The Slapped Wrist

18\. The Slapped Wrist

To someone who'd been knocked out at school so often before, there was a certain sense of wrongness to not waking up in the hospital wing after Harry's latest misadventure. So odd was this feeling that he spent several minutes groggily wondering why he wasn't under Madam Pomfrey's dutiful care, and it was only as he heard a cough opposite him did he realise where he was rather than where he wasn't.

He was in the headmaster's office, neatly wrapped up in the same white linen as he would be in the hospital wing, safely ensconced in a large red chair. Opposite him, cup of tea in hand, sat the headmaster, an unfamiliarly stern look on his face. Only a couple of times previously had Harry experienced Dumbledore's ire, and it had seldom been directed at him. On his half of the desk sat an identical mug, which he steadfastly ignored, instead doing his best to meet the Supreme Mugwump's gaze.

"Mr. Potter. I am called to London for a meeting that nobody else can recall being scheduled, and return to find I am missing a Defence Professor, have four first years squabbling in a part of the castle that should be inaccessible, and a further pair of first years in a chamber that should, if anything, be even more inaccessible. One of those two proceeds to duel me using magic far beyond that of an ordinary eleven-year-old, while the other is lying unconscious on the floor amidst substantial evidence of a similarly advanced duel. On top of this, I find a priceless artefact stolen, in one of the boys' possession, and the ingenious methods of protecting it rendered completely useless. I would be very much obliged, Mr. Potter," and the Chief Warlock's voice hardened even further than it already had, "if you could shed some light on how I come to be in this situation."

Dumbledore didn't know how the Philosopher's Stone was stolen? Was it still in Harry's pocket when Dumbledore arrived, or had Draco relieved him of it beforehand?

"It wasn't me!" he blurted.

At Dumbledore's arched eyebrow, Harry elaborated. After all, a great deal of the build up _was_ him, and though he hadn't done anything against Hogwarts's best interests, he still had a lot of explaining to do.

"I mean, with the Stone, it was Quirrell!"

Dumbledore seemed to believe him - after all, he'd accepted Harry's version of events last time over with no hassle at all, though the circumstances here were definitely somewhat fishier. Harry explained how they knew about the Philosopher's Stone in the first place, trying not to dump poor Hagrid in too much trouble, before moving onto the sketchier logic behind someone trying to steal it. He had no article of a break-in at the wizarding bank, Gringott's, and he only had a second hand account of Quirrell drinking unicorn blood. So passing much of the blame for his inquisitiveness onto an ill-defined 'instinct', he span the tale as best he could.

Finally, ending with how he left Ron and Hermione behind to confront Quirrell on his own, he started to wonder why Dumbledore was so much more rattled this time around. Malfoy was safely tied up behind him, but what about his prize? Was it hidden or passed on before his capture?

"Er, the Philosopher's Stone is safe, right, sir?" he asked hesitantly. Surely if it wasn't then Dumbledore would be out there, hunting it down, and not sat here grilling two of his first years?

On the other hand, those two first years were the only known witnesses to what had happened, which probably made them suspects one and two.

After a long pause, Dumbledore replied.

"No, it is not." he said. At Harry's start, he continued. "It is destroyed. After conversing with the Flamels it was decided the Philosopher's Stone is too precious an item to risk falling into the wrong hands in these turbulent times."

Harry relaxed back into his seat. So everything was proceeding as it had last time, then. That was encouraging; despite the mishaps along the way, it seemed he could enter second year with the stage unchanged.

Then, he thought that a normal eleven-year-old might be slightly disconcerted by the announcement of two people giving up immortality, and he put to Dumbledore the same question he had last time he found himself in this situation.

"But sir, won't there be no supply of the Elixir of Life now the Stone's gone?"

"That is correct, Harry." the headmaster nodded sagely.

"So the Flamels will die?"

"The Flamels have a private store of elixir which they will use while they put their affairs in order, and then, yes, they will die." As Harry did his best to look puzzled by this, Dumbledore continued. "To the very old, Death is nothing more than the next great adventure. They accept it is their time to move on."

Harry hadn't understood this when Dumbledore had first told him this, back when he was wide-eyed and innocent after the first encounter with Voldemort that he actually remembered. He still didn't, but then again he'd never been old; even considering his time travel he wasn't out of his twenties yet.

"But most important of all is that Voldemort doesn't get his hands on it. In fact, it is in great part thanks to your efforts that he hasn't fled the castle with it already."

Harry blushed slightly at the praise, but something felt odd. Dumbledore's tone did not match his warm words, and suddenly the pace of the conversation shifted.

"But I confess to still being slightly confused as to why you suspected the Philosopher's Stone to be in need of saving in the first place."

That was what Harry wasn't too sure on either, and despite the fact he'd convinced Ron and Hermione to come along with him, he wasn't sure the same logic would convince Dumbledore. Then again, it didn't need to; he only had to ensure Dumbledore believed the logic was convincing to himself (if that made any sense), and that he - Harry - therefore believed he had reasonable grounds for pursuing the Stone.

"Well, it wouldn't be in Hogwarts if it didn't need protecting, would it, sir? And you were out of the castle, and Quirrell was on the move -"

"And you suspected Professor Quirrell's intentions from the start?"

"Well, not Quirrell especially, though my scar has been hurting around him all year -"

"So you didn't know who you'd confront in the chamber?"

"No, sir -"

"But you lead Mister Weasley and Miss Granger in pursuit of the danger anyway? Without mentioning anything to any of the staff?"

When he'd first rescued the Philosopher's Stone, long before he'd travelled into the past, they had indeed first gone to the professors with their concerns. However, given they'd been told nothing more useful than to go back to bed, Harry had decided they could safely skip

that step this time round. Evidently, that was a mistake, but hopefully not a terminal one - children were naturally curious anyway, right?

"Well I didn't think it would be _Voldemort_ sir," Harry lied, having known exactly what was waiting in that chamber, "but we thought we might as well check on it anyway. Y'know, while you were out of the castle."

It wasn't a particularly logical answer, but kids weren't renowned for their powers of rational thought anyway, so hopefully it would make do.

"Were you aware of Mister Malfoy's presence underneath the third floor corridor?"

"Not until he reached the final chamber, sir."

"Where there is substantial evidence of a duel between you."

"Well, I tried my best sir, but I was tired from the confrontation with Quirrell, and he got me eventually -"

"A rather advanced duel." Dumbledore commented. Too late, Harry realised his mistake.

"Um, well, it was really very short sir -"

"And Mister Malfoy then proceeded to show off his full repertoire when duelling _me_." Dumbledore said with an odd finality.

Harry realised Dumbledore hadn't asked him what Malfoy's intentions to the Philosopher's Stone were, and that should have told him all he needed to know - after all, he doubted Draco had simply handed it over politely when asked. Unfortunately, he had no idea of what Draco's 'full repertoire' entailed. It was certainly much more advanced than he'd been expecting,

"Er, well, it wasn't that long, I mean, I'd read a bit about various things Quirrell mentioned -" Quirrell, who all concerned knew was useless, Harry berated himself, "- we practiced a bit, me, Ron and Hermione, 'cos we knew - er, suspected - that the Stone was in danger -"

Come on, Harry, he thought frantically to himself, you're better than this. Sure, Dumbledore was many times his age (even taking the time-travel into account) and was widely regarded as one of the most fearsome wizards since Merlin, but he was Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the man who had defeated Voldemort, accomplished Auror, and it was time to take back control

of a conversation that was rapidly running away from him.

The truth, or not the truth?

He made his decision.

"Sir," he started cautiously, after taking a large breath to steady himself, "I'm currently privilege to some rather, er, sensitive information, and don't really want to compromise the information by revealing it to you."

At Dumbledore's glare, he hurriedly continued.

"It's just that, er, you've got a good deal of influence on things at Hogwarts, and if I told you what's going to... er, I mean, what I know, then my currently valuable information will quickly become rather useless, and it's really quite important that this doesn't happen." Harry babbled, straying dangerously close to naughty-schoolchild as Dumbledore's face hardened but with just enough of an Auror's spine in there that the headmaster mightn't dismiss his revelation out of hand.

After a long pause,

"I see." Dumbledore said, and Harry got the feeling that the headmaster really did see, and that he knew exactly who Harry was. His posture stiffened, matching the Professor's serious poise, and he anxiously waited on his next words.

Those words were neither comforting as he hoped, nor aggressive as he feared. Instead they were entirely unexpected, so obvious and yet so unthinkable that Harry's world suddenly found itself turned on its head.

"And is Mr. Malfoy 'privilege' to the same information?"

Harry opened his mouth and had an answer of 'No!' halfway out before the words hit his brain, he slammed his lips sealed and thought furiously.

Could it be?

Draco was acting strangely, that no-one could deny.

He'd shown a marked improvement in academic performance, not to mention his Quidditch skills.

Then there was his interest in the Philosopher's Stone, completely absent from Harry's previous memories. True, it could easily enough have been sparked had he heard Harry, Ron and Hermione discussing it, but somehow he didn't think so.

And then there was his general... maturity. Draco was arrogant, sure, but he had always been arrogant, and now his abilities were starting to back up his bold words. He still bickered with Harry, as they always had, but there was an added sharpness to his wit, and a general absence of pettiness that lead Harry to believe he mightn't be the same boy as had tricked him into meeting Filch in the trophy room long after curfew.

Finally, he considered the duel they'd just had over the Stone. Draco had pulled off moves and spells far above the pay grade of any normal first year. He'd hit hard, fast, and unrelenting, but the hexes (though undoubtedly nasty) were nothing like the truly nefarious curses beloved by most of Voldemort's minions. Had Draco been possessed, Imperiused or otherwise, Harry wouldn't have lasted long enough to be sitting here now.

The very idea was nothing short of impossible.

And yet it made a perverse sort of sense. Every head start Harry had, Draco had matched, from sports to class work to duelling. Did they share this one more advantage as well?

"He... he may well have sir. I don't know, but it would make sense."

"And Miss Granger?"

What? Where had that come from?

Seeing his surprise, Dumbledore elaborated.

"The three of you far outstripped your peers in the end-of-year exams."

At that Harry laughed, a true laugh, and all the tension of the meeting seeped out of him.

"No," he said smiling, "she's exactly the same as before. An utter genius, completely brilliant all on her own."

It occurred to Harry that on the off chance Dumbledore hadn't already arrived to the correct conclusion, he could certainly figure it out from his last answer, but no look of surprise or satisfaction besmirched his venerable face, and he only smiled broadly.

"That's good to hear. I would hate to think that all three of Hogwarts's most brilliant prodigies were benefitting from unnatural advantages."

"Hey," Harry said in mock protest, "The Quidditch is all me. Youngest seeker in a century, I'll have you know."

Dumbledore's smile grew, and then vanished as he returned to business. As always, Harry was astonished by the swift change between the affable grandfather and the hardened veteran. The headmaster was easily underestimated, a fact he used well.

"Very well. I will not interfere any more than I would with any other student. But," and now his stare turned from offputting to downright terrifying, "if the situation gets out of hand, you are to let me know. I will not hesitate to do what is right for this school. Understood?"

After frantic nodding, Dumbledore rose and turned to the stairs that lead further up the tower. He gave a twist of his wand, and Draco, who had been unconscious and half forgotten in a corner, started to stir.

"I will leave Mister Malfoy in your capable hands. I found him over your body before the Mirror of Erised, and he escaped that chamber before being knocked out by one of McGonagall's chess pieces. The subsequent search revealed the Philosopher's Stone in his pocket. I trust you to act as you see fit."

Harry must have looked astonished, because Dumbledore repeated his words.

"I leave him to your care, Mr. Potter."

And then he left the boys alone.

* * *

Draco woke up to three angry trolls dancing on his head.

At least, that's what it felt like. A headache threatened to split open his skull with a scar that would put Potter's to shame, and the it seemed as if the very room swam around him. Purples and yellows fought with blacks and greys as his eyes tried to make sense of the scene in front of them. He remembered setting off to steal the Philosopher's Stone, with vague memories of a duel with Potter, and then...

Oh. And then there was that fight with Headmaster Dumbledore himself, before he got himself rather too acquainted with an irate clergyman.

That would explain why there was a bruise the size of his fist protruding from his forehead, and why the purples and yellows before him were gradually coalescing into the shape of a none-too-pleased professor.

"I leave him to your care, Mr. Potter," said Dumbledore, and Draco realised he'd woken up at the end of a conversation between the two people in the castle he was most wary of. Great. It appeared his stint as time-traveller extraordinaire was going to come to a very early conclusion, and his only backup plan wouldn't mature for years. The only question left was why he hadn't been obliviated already.

Then again, as warmth spread down his arms and feeling returned to his fingers, he wasn't in a great situation anyway. His wand was nowhere on his person - in fact, he could see it lying softly on the other side of Dumbledore's desk - his hands were bound, and he hardly had the energy left to speak, let alone mastermind an escape attempt.

And now, he was subjected to the only thing arguably worse than being trapped in a room with Dumbledore and his pet Boy-Who-Lived. He was alone with Potter.

He stared sullenly as Potter began his inquisition.

"How're you?" Potter asked.

Wonderful. While the brat clearly found this development as unexpected and as unpleasant as Draco himself did, that didn't mean he was in the mood for idle small talk.

When Draco didn't give any reply other than a blank look, Potter continued anyway.

"What were you doing down in the chamber?"

There wasn't really a good answer for that, even if he had felt like talking, so Draco just kept silent.

"Why did you want the Philosopher's Stone?"

Stupid question. It was an outrageously powerful artefact that granted the bearer immortality and eternal wealth. Who exactly wouldn't want it? Draco just scoffed, but the effort sent a wince through his head which had continued throbbing throughout the one-sided conversation. It wasn't just petulance keeping his mouth shut, after all.

"You knocked me out, stole a priceless jewel, duelled the headmaster to a standstill and attempted to flee the scene. Why shouldn't we obliviate you and toss your wretched hide into Azkaban?"

This one was a good question, delivered with a confidence hitherto unseen in the young Gryffindor. Not least because Draco knew the accusations were true and constituted a grave enough breach of the peace to make the threat plausible.

"Because my father wouldn't let you."

"He knew about this?"

Draco could hardly tell what would be worse, his father's wrath if he found out about his 'extra-curricular activities' or his being investigated for potentially instigating them. Either way, it didn't seem to matter, because the worry showed and Potter read the answer off his face anyway.

"I thought not. And I'm guessing you don't want us to tell him?"

It was another question to which the answer was obvious, so Draco didn't lower himself to reply.

"So, going back to my last point. Why shouldn't we obliviate you and toss your wretched hide into Azkaban?"

Before Draco could respond, Potter continued.

"I'll give you a hint. It's because you're about to tell me very quickly and very precisely what happened to cause this mess, and you'd better hope it's going to be a good enough answer to get yourself off."

Now that they'd been talking a while, Draco's brain began to catch up with the events unfurling around him. Dumbledore had left Potter - an eleven-year-old child - in charge of a prisoner who had violently resisted capture and threatened to steal a Philosopher's Stone. This child was now speaking to him perfectly normally, as if Draco hadn't knocked him out last time they were both conscious in a room together, and was attempting to lead an interrogation Dumbledore himself was playing no part in.

Either Dumbledore had taken complete leave of his senses (possible), Potter was getting advanced on-the-job training for leading a major war effort (also possible, but somehow slightly more unlikely) or there was some trickery going on here.

His first thought was Polyjuice. Some Auror had taken the potion to assume the form of his childhood rival, in the hope that... what, he would open up all of a sudden? In which case, why was this so obviously an interrogation rather than the first half of a good cop / bad cop routine?

Potter seemed to sense his hesitance, and his face morphed from stern to confused. Draco could feel him grappling with something in his mind, something big, something that would define the years to come.

A choice.

And then Potter reschooled his features, made his choice, and asked the question that could change the fate of a war.

"You're from the future."

* * *

 _A/N: Sorry this is late, I'm still unexpectedly busy. I felt I needed to get something out, and this chapter was overrunning anyway, hence why we're leaving in an odd place-turned-cliffhanger._

 _As a head's up as to how it's going on from here, there's one or two more chapters left (probably one) of Year One. There'll then be a several month break, both in plotline and in posting time, while I write all of Year Two. The idea is Year Two can then be posted in weekly updates, with very few disruptions, all the way to the finish. Roughly halfway through the gap I'll post a summer chapter interlude with an Author's Note as to how I'm getting on._

 _Alternatives would be a shorter gap and continued fortnightly posting (though with delays, as those following recently will be very familiar with) or a slightly shorter gap followed by half of Year Two on a weekly basis, then a break somewhere convenient while I finish off writing the rest of it, then I post the second half weekly again. At the moment, I'm not planning either of these, but might be forced into the latter if the initial 'gap' is longer than I think it will be. If you've opinions on the schedule, let me know in a review. Otherwise, review anyway with what you thought of the chapter!_


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